


The Sleeping Beauty Curse

by LibbyWeasley



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Curse, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Kissing, Post-Season 5, Season 1, Sex, coded messages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-06-14 07:12:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15383448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibbyWeasley/pseuds/LibbyWeasley
Summary: Season 1 AU.  Jemma pricks her finger on an 084 and falls into a deep sleep, waking up in the future.  Meanwhile, Fitz struggles to wake her up until he finally takes Skye’s advice and attempts a fairy tale solution to the problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will take place in season 1 and also post-season 5 (about 2 years post-season 5). The POV will alternate between Jemma and Fitz.
> 
> A huge thank you to @sunalso for helping me put my outline together and to @blancasplayground for the beta read. This story is so much better because of them :)

_2013, The Bus_

Jemma stared at the tablet in her hand, trying to make sense of the test results she was looking at. All she knew at this point was that there were no unidentifiable biological traces that her swab had picked up. That should satisfy Fitz at least. He had refused to come anywhere near the 084 until she was able to assure him there were no viruses, bacteria, or organic materials present. But the simple tests she was able to run in the lab on the Bus didn’t give her the information she needed to actually determine what the 084 was or what it was supposed to be used for. The metal disc they had found looked to be made of gold. A piece of jewelry perhaps? But when she checked the weight and magnetism, it didn’t line up. The density seemed closer to iron, though it didn’t look like any piece of iron she had ever seen. She had been hoping to learn the age, the origin materials...or something, but this was a complete mystery to her. 

She blew out a breath in a huff and tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ears, trying to push her frustrations out. She glanced across the lab at Fitz, hoping to be able to discuss some ideas with him. That was how they usually problem-solved anyway, by talking things out. But right now he was tapping angrily on his keyboard muttering under his breath. She thought she heard something about bears and diseases spread by mosquitoes. As she was watching he brought one hand up to press his forehead, a sure sign that he was frustrated as well. Jemma turned away, trying to hide her smile. He could be so prickly sometimes, which tended to push other people away, but she understood his mood for what it was. He was just as frustrated as she was right now and at least one of them had to stay calm. She supposed that was her job.

When the team had been called to investigate the 084, Fitz and Jemma had naturally assumed they would be staying behind to analyze whatever information the team was able to send back and to help run the op from the back end. But Coulson had needed them to go in the field to use the DWARFs to locate the 084. No one else could operate them like Fitz could, and he needed to be close enough to pick up their signal...and in the woods where they were searching, that was very close. The information they had been given had led them to a mountain range, but not a specific location. With the dense tree cover that meant they’d had to hike in with their equipment, and Fitz hadn’t responded favorably to that...or to the prospect of encountering bears. But once they located the 084, that it was some sort of metal disc with roughly cut red stones and cloudy, white pearls inlaid around the outer edge was the extent of her conclusions regarding it so far, they returned to the Bus with Skye in order to complete their analysis, while the rest of the team remained in the field searching for additional artifacts. 

The original reports had suggested there were three separate artifacts, which meant that completing their analysis on this artifact was a priority. It could help them identify the other objects more quickly if they understood what this disc was for. Maybe all three pieces worked together? Hopefully Fitz would calm down soon, and then she could ask for his help. She was finding it difficult to reason through this without him.

At that moment Skye popped her head in to ask if they had an update.

“Coulson wants to know where we stand on identifying the 084,” she said, glancing back and forth from Jemma to Fitz. Skye had certainly taken to her role on the team, acting as Coulson’s second-in-command when he was out in the field. When all Fitz did was grunt in Skye’s direction, Skye focused all of her attention back on Jemma. 

“Tell him...tell him we are still running tests...and that, that Fitz is working on programming the models,” she said in a tone that didn’t leave any room for comment, then added a tight smile for good measure.

It must have done the trick because Skye nodded, and headed back out of the lab to report back to Coulson.

Turning her attention back to the task at hand, she ran through her options. Radiocarbon dating would be ideal to date the artifact, but she didn’t have the right equipment. And she had already tried the basic methods of determining the metal composition - a physical inspection, weight, and magnetism tests. The fact that the disc seemed to be highly magnetized pointed towards iron or steel, but it certainly didn’t _look_ like iron or steel. Plus it looked like some sort of jewelry. But that didn’t make any sense either because, at 12.7 centimeters, it was too large to be any sort of jewelry she was familiar with. 

Sighing again, she looked over to Fitz, only to find him staring at her already. She watched him swallow and then try to quickly look away, before walking towards her with a questioning look on his face. Recently, she had started to feel that she made him nervous. 

“Did you find anything yet, Simmons?”

Jemma licked her lips before responding testily, “All I have so far are questions.”

Fitz squeezed next to her to examine the disc. He was probably already closer than strictly necessary, but Jemma leaned into him slightly so that her hand brushed against his arm in a comforting gesture. He had really had a rough day. Being out in the field was not something he enjoyed. He had only taken this assignment because of her, and sometimes that made her feel a little guilty...but not guilty enough to go back to Sci-Ops. And since the first thing he had insisted on upon their return to the Bus had been a shower, to wash off “the outdoors,” with him this close she could smell his soap, which was comforting to her. 

“Feeling better Fitz?” she asked, trying to ascertain his state of mind. If he was still stuck on wild animals and tree fungus he wouldn’t be much help to her. But she needn’t have worried, Fitz was...well, he was Fitz. He was her best friend, and her lab partner, and he was here to help her.

“Yeah, I’ve got the program set up to take all the readings we collected and triangulate the most likely locations for the other 084s,” he responded with one of those smiles that seemed to be just for her. 

“Good...then you can help me. Coulson wants to know what we are dealing with, but I honestly have no idea.” And she really hated having no idea. 

“Okay...did you try to date it? Check the weight? Check the magnetism?”

Jemma got more agitated again as he ran through everything she had just done.

“Yes, yes, and yes...it is highly magnetized, but looks more like gold...it also seems to be jewelry of some sort or symbol of wealth...I would guess it dates from the 15th or 16th century since the stones are so roughly cut, but that it just a guess.”

Everything she knew about the 084 came out in a single breath. That wasn’t a very comforting thought. Perhaps Fitz was right. Maybe _this_ was the day they would regret coming into the field. Working under pressure like this was usually exhilarating, but right now it just felt exhausting. Instead of the thrill of discovery and the chase of the unknown, she just felt like she was hitting dead ends.

“Why don’t we scan it and then pull it up on the holotable...that way we can see if there is anything we missed.”

“Yes, of course,” Jemma responded briskly, pulling on a fresh set of gloves. That made perfect sense. This was why she needed Fitz. 

She moved the disc over to the machine to be scanned and they waited in silence for the 3D image to appear. As soon as it did Fitz started turning the image around and zooming in on different parts of the disc, making observations about the metal and construction as he went. Jemma watched his fingers move confidently across the holographic image, but didn’t comment. She knew he needed time to think things through. Eventually he pointed to what looked like small cracks on the disc, one near each of the stones. Jemma zoomed in on the fissure, focusing her attention on the straight edges of the indentations.

“It looks like this was made with some sort of tool —“

“— which means that maybe there is something under those stones,” Fitz finished. 

Without looking at each other, their hands came out to meet in a high five. 

“We could also do a file test...if there is iron present in the metal it should react to the reagent,” Jemma said, feeling more confident again. 

“Let’s do that first...I can get a metal sample from one of those cracks while you get the reagents.”

Fitz also put on a pair of gloves and filed off some small shavings for her to test. She grabbed several bottles of chemicals from the storage cupboard, but she felt certain her first choice, hydrochloric acid, would give her the answer she was looking for. Iron was really the most reasonable assumption. Given the information she already had and relying on Ockham’s razor, the simplest answer was that they were looking at an iron disc that was somehow discolored rather than something more exotic...or alien. While the rest of the team seemed to delight in identifying every 084 as something alien, Jemma felt it was her duty as a scientist to remind them that an 084 just meant that the object was of “unknown origin” and not that it came from outer space. Her job would be much easier if this was just an old piece of metal.

Jemma handed Fitz a pair of safety goggles and waited for him to put them on before turning her attention to the Petri dish Fitz had placed the shavings in. Even the urgency of their analysis was no reason to forget basic lab safety. 

“I’m going to use HCl as a reagent. If it reacts with the solid sample, it will create FeCl2 and give off H2, which will confirm that there is iron present in the disc.” Once she had finished her explanation, she glanced up at Fitz, who was looking at her with his impossibly blue eyes and a slight scowl. 

“I know that, Simmons…let’s just do the test.”

They both leaned closer as Jemma added a dropper full of hydrochloric acid to the metal sample, and then they stepped back as the sample seemed to give off a phosphorescent glow. That was not any science she had ever seen before. 

“So...the reagent caused some sort of chemical reaction with the metal...or something in the metal?” Jemma asked, turning to Fitz. 

He was still examining the sample. “It doesn’t look like the integrity of the metal was affected...maybe the reagent causes some sort of pattern or markings to become visible?” He suggested hesitantly. 

“That is brilliant, Fitz!” She was so happy that they were finally getting their rhythm back today. They had their most productive days in the lab when they were in sync. 

“That could also explain the discoloration of the metal. It appears to look more like gold due to whatever substance is causing the metal to glow,” she continued excitedly. “I’ll just move the disc into the hood so we can contain any fumes that are released in the reaction, and we can expose the entire disc to HCl at once to see if that gives us any more clues.”

Jemma went to retrieve the disc, and noticed that one of the stones was coming loose. If there was something hidden under the stones, this could be the clue they needed. She absently rubbed her finger over it as she carried it across the room, and felt a prick on her finger. There hadn’t been anything sharp on the disc before, she was sure of that. It must have been released when she moved the stone. There was a moment of searing pain in her finger and then she felt fire run through her veins. As if it were happening in slow motion, she felt her legs becoming weak and start to give out. Her eyes sought out Fitz across the room, but he was turned away from her, preparing the fume hood for their test. Before her eyes fell closed he turned to face her, and she saw panic take over his features. As she fell towards the floor, her last thought was that she was suddenly feeling very sleepy, and then she heard Fitz’s voice yelling her name...then, nothing but darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d love to hear your comments and feedback! You can also find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to my awesome beta @blancasplayground!

_2013, The Bus_

Fitz turned away from the hood to see what was keeping Jemma. He had expected her to be beside him by now. She was always so eager to invade his personal space. Not that he actually minded, but it was getting harder and harder not to feel uncomfortable with some of her “friendly” gestures that he desperately wanted to not be just friendly.

But when he turned around he was met with a sight that made his blood run cold. Jemma’s eyes were drifting closed as she crumbled to the ground. The scene played out before his eyes as if in slow motion, and his feet remained rooted to the spot.

“Jemma! JEMMAAAA!”

He forced his body into motion and he ran towards her as if weighed down, his legs stiff and unwieldy. When he finally reached her side he felt completely useless. She was pale and unmoving. He couldn’t think. It sometimes felt like the two of them could do anything, but this was clearly her area of expertise, not his. 

“Fitz! What happened?” Skye yelled at him, slightly out of breath. She was standing by the door to the lab and it looked like she had run all the way.

“I-I don’t know...we were working...she...I don’t know what to do.” He wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, vaguely aware of the fact that he was yelling at Skye.

Fingers scrabbling frantically to pull off the gloves Jemma had made them both wear for the experiment, he crouched down next to her and took her right hand in his as Skye came around from the other side. Turning her palm over he pressed two fingers to her wrist, searching for a pulse...and didn’t find one.

“Skye, I can’t find her pulse,” he said, panic really setting in now. He couldn’t even think of his life without her. He had to make this right. “Help me!” he begged, tears threatening.

One look at Skye’s face made his heart drop in his chest. The fear etched on her face was not reassuring in any way. 

Skye snapped into action. “Right...what do we need to do?”

“Pulse...breathing...uh, resuscitation,” he mumbled back at her, finally able to focus on the most immediate concern. After sending a silent apology to Jemma he reached for the buttons on her blouse. It was one of his favorites on her, the fabric hugged her curves and whenever she wore it she also wore her hair down the way he liked it best. He struggled with the small pearly white buttons that were slippery between his fingers, and then, cursing, just tugged the fabric apart, sending buttons skittering across the floor.

“Fitz, what are you doing!” 

Pulling Jemma’s blouse open he dropped his hands to her chest, resting them right where her breasts spilled over the cups of her bra, and lowered his cheek so it was next to her mouth. After a moment he felt a gentle breath again his cheek and a slight rise and fall of her chest as she inhaled and exhaled again. It was a shallow breath, but it was there.

“She’s breathing,” he said triumphantly with a look over a Skye who was crouched on the other side of Jemma. But the look on her face wasn’t the relief he expected. Instead, it was still a mix of fear and something else he didn’t recognize, and her gaze wasn’t directed at his face, but rather to where his hands still rested on Jemma, his fingers curled around the curve of her breasts.

Realizing he was feeling up his best friend, he pulled his hands back as if burned. 

“I-I didn’t...I wouldn’t...we...she, she’s breathing,” he stammered, heat rising up his neck. It was bad enough that he was having trouble keeping his thoughts of Jemma professional during the long days they spent working together in the lab, but he didn’t need Skye getting any ideas about their relationship now. She was relentless when she got an idea stuck in her head.

“She needs medical attention, Fitz.”

“I know...but she’s breathing...I was afraid…” He dropped his head into his hands and took a shuddering breath to clear his panicked mind. She had to be okay. She _had_ to.

“We can’t move her yet,” he said suddenly, dragging his hands down his face. 

“Why not?” Skye asked, appearing willing to follow his lead for now. She was even more out of her depth than he was.

“We need to check her for injuries...she might have hit her head...and something must have happened to make her pass out.”

“So, we are looking for any marks? Or something she could have touched?” Skye asked. “Oh! What about something contagious?”

“I’ve been in here with her the whole time so I don’t think it is anything airborne...and if it is, then we are both already infected anyway.”

Skye pulled her hand back. 

“I’m sure we’re fine,” Fitz tried to reassure her, “let’s just start checking her for bumps and bruises...I’ll start with her head and you can look at...umm, everything else.”

Since it looked like Jemma had lost consciousness before she fell, he didn’t expect any sort of head wound to be what they were looking for, but he carefully checked her head for bumps in case she hit her head when she fell. He brushed a curl back from her face and ran his hands gently through her hair from her forehead to the back of her head. Her curls were every bit as soft as he had imagined they would be. Letting the strands slip through his fingers, his eyes fell shut in frustration. Of course he was the bloody idiot who couldn’t find the words to tell her how he felt. And now it might be too late.

“Fitz, look!”

Skye was holding Jemma’s left hand, now free from the glove she had been wearing, and Fitz saw the drop of blood on her finger. He knew she hadn’t been bleeding before, so that must have been the cause of...whatever had happened. 

“That must be it. Let me take a closer look.”

Taking off his cardigan, he carefully folded it and laid Jemma’s head down gently. She looked so peaceful, her dark hair framing her pale face and her features more relaxed than he had seen in a long time. 

Moving to her other side he took her hand in his and squinted at the bead of blood on her finger. It was dark red, but she didn’t appear to be losing much blood. 

“Skye, can you get one of the...uh, gauze pads from the box in the drawer?”

Fitz pointed towards the cabinet next to them.

“Oh, and a blue bag as well.”

“Ok...yeah.” Skye rushed over to the cabinet and started pulling out all of the drawers and rifling through the contents.

Jemma wasn’t going to be happy if she woke up...no, _when_ she woke up.

Once Skye had returned, Fitz carefully wiped the blood off of Jemma’s finger and placed the gauze in the biological sample bag. There probably wasn’t enough blood to test, but Jemma would preserve the sample, so that was what he was going to do.

“Is this the 084--”

“Don’t touch that!” Fitz yelled, realizing that Skye was reaching for the disc.

Skye already had her hand around the disc, but it dropped to the floor with a clatter at Fitz’s outburst.

“What the hell, Fitz!” she yelled back at him.

“Sorry...I’m sorry.” Fitz took a deep breath to clear his head. “She was holding that when...when it happened...and whatever it was went right through her glove.”

“Oh...right. Maybe we could scoop it up with something.” 

Skye started hunting around the room, presumably looking for a way to pick up the 084 without touching it. Fitz turned his attention back to Jemma, her hand still tucked in his. He peered at her finger. He could hardly see where her skin had been punctured. It was such a small thing to cause her to be lying on the floor, unconscious and barely breathing.

Skye returned and scooped up the 084 into a box and placed it back on the counter.

“That should keep it safe for now...but, Fitz, I think we should get her off the floor.”

“Yeah...yes, of course...if we can get her to the med bay we can monitor her vitals...make sure she is still breathing.” His voice broke on the last word.

“Fitz...are you ok?” Skye asked cautiously. 

“Yeah, fine...just help me pick her up...I-I can’t carry her by myself.”

Between the two of them, they managed to get her to the med bay and settled onto the bed. Skye flipped all the switches on the monitors to the on position, while Fitz dug around in the supplies for the leads they’d need to monitor her heartbeat and respiration.

He’d seen Jemma work with the equipment before, and he thought he could do it....probably. After an embarrassing amount of fumbling under her shirt -- at least Skye wasn’t looking at him with those accusing eyes this time -- he finally got everything positioned correctly and the monitor began beeping out a slow staccato rhythm in time with her heartbeat. 

His jaw relaxed a little at this affirmation of life. As long as she was still breathing that meant he had time to fix this. Across the room Skye was working on a tablet she had retrieved from the lab.

“We need to report back to Coulson--”

“--You go...I’ll stay here with Jemma...I mean, Simmons.”

“Fitz...he’s going to want to talk to you.” 

“We can’t leave her here alone...what if something happens?” Fitz knew he was being a little unreasonable, but this was Jemma. Wasn’t he entitled to a little unreasonableness? She was his best friend. She was his.

“That’s what the tablet is for...I have it all synced up, so we’ll be able to monitor her from anywhere on the Bus.”

“Fine, but make it quick.” He took the tablet she held out to him, and studied the readout. “I have to figure out what that thing did to her.”

Skye tried to hide her smile, but he saw it before she fully turned away, and he followed her to the laptop she had abandoned when she first hear him yelling Jemma’s name. Her fingers moved quickly over the keys and within seconds Coulson appeared on the screen.

“Any update?” he asked briskly. Fitz could see that the sun had fallen low in the sky, casting shadows over Coulson’s face.

“We have a problem,” Skye responded quickly, before Fitz could speak. “Simmons is unconscious and we think it was the 084.”

“What’s her status?”

This time Skye looked to Fitz to answer. “She is breathing, stable for now, but we have no idea what’s wrong with her or how to wake her up.”

“Figure it out, Fitz. Skye can help you. We’ll be heading back after we check out one more lead.” With that, Coulson ended the call.

Fitz and Skye looked at each other for a moment. It looked like they wouldn’t be getting any help.

“What do we do next?”

Looking back down at the tablet, Fitz’s breathing slowed to match the digital spikes of Jemma’s heartbeat. Feeling more centered than he’d felt since he’d seen her fall, he pulled his eyes back to Skye’s face.

“Umm...we had an idea that we were going to try.”

“Let’s do it.” Skye grabbed her laptop and headed back into the lab. Fitz walked more slowly after her. All he had right now were Jemma’s last two ideas and he didn’t want them to lead to a dead end.

Since Skye had put the 084 onto the counter, he carried it inside the box over to the fume hood to take a closer look. 

“Would you look at that.” 

Fitz was really just talking to himself, but Skye answered him anyway. She didn’t understand the way he worked. He missed Jemma.

“What is it?”

Fitz turned around and pressed one hand to his forehead.

“That pin sticking out...that wasn’t there before.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, squinting at the disc. “How can you be sure?”

He gestured towards the holotable, where the image of the 084 was still glowing, and she nodded back at him.

“So, you think that’s it? Simmons pricked her finger on a tiny pin and now she won’t wake up?”

“I don’t know what else it could be!” Fitz was getting agitated again, and he looked down at the tablet that was still clutched in one hand. Her vitals hadn’t changed at all.

“Ok...ok. What was the idea you were working on?”

“Simmons and I had tested the chemical composition of the sample and realized that the reagent caused an unusual reaction when mixed with the metal filings rather than the expected release of gaseous hydrogen and ferrous chloride…” Fitz stopped talking as he realized Skye was looking at him and rolling her eyes. “The metal glows.”

“It glows? What does that mean?”

“It means that we were going to test the entire disc to see if something would appear - a pattern, or a clue, or anything that can help us figure out what this thing is.”

“Alright! Let’s check it out.”

Skye seemed very excited to be in the lab, but then he noticed that her smile was a little brittle, and he realized she was just doing this for him. He would try to be a little less grumpy with her. That’s what Jemma would want him to do.

Setting the tablet down next to the fume hood where he’d be able to keep an eye on it, he picked up the bottle of HCl Jemma had been using as the reagent and grabbed more gloves and safety goggles, handing a pair to Skye.

She made a face at him, and he raised an eyebrow in return, but she eventually put the goggles on.

Working quickly under the hood he turned over the disc and added a diluted solution of HCl to each side.

“Whoa...that is wild,” Skye breathed out.

The 084 was glowing, with markings appearing on one side of the disc and letters on the other, though they didn’t seem to form actual words.

Glancing once again at the tablet propped on the table beside him, Fitz started to smile. This was the clue they needed to save her and Jemma had led him right to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is when Jemma will meet an older Fitz (about 2 years post-season 5). That chapter is pretty much done, so I don’t think there will be a long wait for an update. 
> 
> I’d love to hear your feedback and comments! You can also find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think she was joking, but @blancasplayground suggested some warnings to go with this chapter. So consider yourself warned - SleepyFitz, Fitz with baby, ShirtlessFitz. Parts of it are basically FitzSimmons crack.
> 
> Again, a huge thank you to @blancasplayground!

_2020, Perthshire_

Jemma woke to the golden light of sunrise streaming through the open window next to her. A gentle breeze drifted in, bringing the smell of rain. It was so familiar it felt like home for a moment, until she realized that wasn’t possible. She was on a field assignment, not back at home. 

But that wasn’t quite right either. Looking around the room, nothing seemed familiar. Light blue curtains fluttered at the window and the soft duvet cover had small yellow and blue flowers scattered across it. Now that she was more fully awake she started noticing more details. The breeze wafting through the window was cool. The mattress beneath her was soft...and the body lying next to her was warm, like a small furnace against the chill in the air. 

The duvet was pushed down around her waist and she was turned to her side so she couldn’t see him. But now that she felt awareness tingle through her body she couldn’t believe that wasn’t the first thing she noticed upon waking. Her back was pressed up against his chest and an arm pulled her protectively against him. She felt a lot of him against her bare skin and a glance down at herself showed that all she was wearing were her knickers and an entirely too small tank top. Her restless movements caused him to shift and as she wiggled against him to get more comfortable, he mumbled her name into her hair. 

Jemma froze, panic holding her in place, not ready to face whoever was snuggled next to her, when the word registered in her sleep-muddled mind. There was only one person who said her name like that, his accent somehow more pronounced with those two syllables than with other words. Fitz! Somehow she had ended up spending the night with Fitz, and by their collective state of undress, not to mention the way they were spooned together, it seemed that it had not been platonic. That thought both terrified and excited her.

Jemma wracked her brain for any memory of how she had gotten here. If she had sex with Fitz, she certainly wanted to remember it. This would alter their relationship beyond recognition and she at least deserved to have those memories. But there was nothing. She couldn’t remember kissing him, or touching him, or anything. She chewed at her bottom lip in frustration. The way his arm was around her, his palm resting on her stomach, was sending little tendrils of pleasure through her, as was the way his skin seemed to radiate heat. But she couldn't remember feeling this way before. It felt new, and exciting, and she suddenly felt like a school-girl with her first crush. 

She forced her mind back to the last memory she had...which was testing the 084 in the lab. That was something at least. Fitz had been grumpy about everything, which brought a smile to her face now, and then...and then…

Then she had felt pain, and fear, and remembered falling...and then waking up here. With Fitz.

What had happened? Where were they? Why couldn’t she remember?

She remembered feeling something stab her finger, so she quickly pulled her left hand up in front of her face to check her injury. But there was nothing there. No puncture, no bruise, no pain. She carefully checked each of her fingertips to be sure. That was odd. Sliding her thumb down her ring finger, she encountered cool metal and flipped her hand over to reveal a wedding band with a small stone set in the middle. Her breath caught in her throat. Placing her hand over the one still resting loosely on her stomach, she skimmed her fingertips over Fitz’s fingers until she felt the metal band on his fourth finger. 

She was married...no, _they_ were married. Her thoughts spun out of control. How did she go from the lab at the bus to in bed with her best friend? And why didn’t that thought bother her as much as she thought it should?

Forcing breath in and out of her lungs in an even enough rhythm to not wake him, she tried to find a reasonable explanation. There was no way she could handle a mostly-naked Fitz on top of her current confusion.

So, back to the facts. She had to figure out what she knew to be true and then test the most likely hypothesis. 

Fact 1 - She was in bed with Fitz  
Fact 2 - They were married  
Fact 3 - ...and if she was being honest with herself, which of course she tried to be because there was no point in lying to yourself…Facts 1 & 2 sent an odd thrill through her  
Fact 4 - She had been injured while working in the lab  
Fact 5 - She now had no sign of injury

So that all added up to...what?

Maybe she was in a coma? This was all a dream? She had never had this kind of dream before, but it was quite lovely so far. 

Or...a horrible thought struck her. Maybe she died. 

“Is this heaven?” 

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken the words aloud until she heard a low chuckle and then Fitz’s voice, sleep-roughened and low, in her ear. 

“Some days it feels like heaven to me too, but it’s just Perthshire...and since you-know-who is still sleeping--“

Jemma was about to tell him she did not who know you-know-who was, but at that moment his fingers crept lower on her belly and under the elastic of her knickers and she instinctively thrust her hips back against him, moaning when she felt his fingers reach her center at the same time his erection pressed against her bottom. 

“Oh, Fitz,” she breathed out his name. If this was all a dream, then she was happy to stay asleep. If she could have imagined that being with him would have felt like this, she would have done it a long time ago. Maybe this was her subconscious helping her solve a problem she couldn’t work out in the light of day. Which certainly gave more credence to the coma theory. She couldn’t imagine her Fitz – the one she just saw in the lab – touching her like this.

She licked her lips and moved her hips again, this time intentionally, reveling in the desire that was coursing through her. The heat she felt at his touch only intensified when his lips descended on the back of her neck and kissed and nipped at the sensitive skin there. How did Fitz know how to do this to her? She only had a moment’s doubt about giving herself over completely to sensation when a wail echoed around the room. 

Fitz’s hand stilled and he let out a breath. 

“That little monkey has the worst timing. It is almost like she knows when we finally get a few minutes alone.”

The wailing had ceased almost as soon as it had begun and now Jemma could see the small white box on the bedside table that was responsible for a string of what sounded like absolute nonsense. 

Fitz pressed one more kiss to her hair and got out of bed. She felt the loss of his warmth and his touch immediately and tugged at the duvet to cover herself up. 

She rolled onto her back and got her first glimpse of Fitz, her eyes drinking him in and her brain cataloging his features. He looked the same as he always had...but also different. He looked older and he had more muscle than she had ever imagined would be hidden beneath his clothes. But his blue eyes were the same, as was the way they met hers across the room. But there was such an intensity in his gaze that she had to look away. She felt like an imposter. She couldn’t really be his wife. And Fitz, _her Fitz_ , was probably out of his mind with worry right now. She had to figure out a way to get back to him. 

As she watched, he pulled on a pair of sweatpants that hung low on his hips but no shirt, she noted, fascinated by the way his muscles moved across his arms and back. 

“It’s Tuesday, so it’s my turn. I’ll get the baby if you get the tea started,” he said, opening the bedroom door and giving Jemma a glimpse of a hallway. Strangely, her mind hadn’t considered anything beyond the four walls of this room. He gave her a small smile that sent goosebumps running down her arms. 

“Okay.” Jemma had no idea what she was agreeing to, but if he kept making her feel this way, she’d agree to pretty much anything. 

“Come on, sleepyhead,” he teased, mistaking her dazed expression for lingering sleepiness, “and to think that you used to be the early-riser around here.” 

She was so distracted by the way Fitz made her feel that he was gone before she was able to replay his words in her mind. Fitz had a baby! That made the crying and babbled words coming from what she could now clearly see was a baby monitor make more sense. And if Fitz had a baby, maybe she had a baby too. Unless Fitz had a baby with someone else? But no, that didn’t make any sense. The most likely explanation for all of this was that she was still unconscious and this was a dream. Why would her subconscious make her feel all tingly when Fitz looked at her and then let him have a baby with someone else? 

Once Fitz had left the room, Jemma turned her attention to finding some clothes. She couldn’t explore the house dressed as she was now. In the closet she found a pair of shorts and what looked like one of Fitz’s old shirts. She pulled the shirt over her head, inhaling the scent of soap and…Fitz. It was as familiar to her as her own name. She always felt better when he was near. Pulling her hair up into a ponytail she stepped into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face, hoping it would help cool the desire that was still buzzing through her. Fitz hadn’t seemed too put out to stop what they were doing to go get the baby. The baby. The idea that she could have created another life with Fitz felt like a rock settling in her stomach.

It would be much easier to face whatever further surprises awaited her if she felt more like herself. She looked in the mirror, studying her own face. There were lines around her eyes she didn’t recognize. She hoped they were from years of laughter and not from pain and loss. Her hair was also different. Shorter than it had been. In this dream, or nightmare, it appeared that she and Fitz were both older. So, she hadn’t really traveled through time then, at least her body hadn’t. That explained why Fitz hadn’t seemed to react to her younger self suddenly appearing in his bed. To him, she belonged here, with whatever shared history the two of them had experienced together. But...if she was here, then what if there was another Jemma that had actually married this Fitz. Ugh, that was too much to try to figure out today.

Making her way towards the kitchen to start the kettle, she passed three doors in the hallway. The first led to an office with two desks and a travel cot set up near one of them. That must be so they could work and still have the baby close by. The second led to a bathroom, while the third led to the room Fitz was currently occupying. The room was painted a pale pink, with a border of stars in different pastel colors. She slowed her steps so she could observe him for a moment. He was standing next to a changing table, gently coaxing the baby – certainly not a newborn, but still small – into clean clothes. She felt tears at the corners of her eyes as a mix of emotions welled up inside her. Of course he would be a wonderful father. He had such a kind heart. As if sensing her presence he looked over and smiled at her standing by the open doorway.

“There’s your mum, Maddie girl,” he said, looking down at the child and tickling her tummy until she laughed up at him.

Her mouth dry, Jemma forced her feet to keep moving forward. Tea sounded like a lovely idea right now.

An unfamiliar kitchen should have been difficult to navigate, but she found everything right where it should be - tea in a jar on the counter and cups in the cabinet closest to the kettle. She was pouring a cup for herself when she heard laughter coming from the hallway behind her. She poured a second cup for Fitz. Even if he was a hallucination, she supposed he deserved tea.

“Muh..muh,” the baby - Maddie is what Fitz had called her - squealed in her sweet baby voice, while lifting her arms to Jemma.

Fitz handed her to Jemma, and with only a moment to panic she took the baby...and fell in love with the tiny weight in her arms. She smelled of baby powder and Jemma looked down to see curious blue eyes staring back at her. Those were eyes she would recognize anywhere. Fitz’s eyes. But she could also see her own nose, and the dark curls on the child’s head looked a lot like her own baby pictures. To be sure she’d still need to do a DNA test, but it seemed likely that this was her child. Her and Fitz. Together.

A chubby hand reached up to touch her face and Jemma held it in hers, kissing it until the little girl laughed and smiled.

Fitz had been drinking his tea and watching this interaction with a small smile, but now he came over and pulled Jemma and Maddie into a hug.

“I’m sorry I have to leave my favorite girls alone today. I have to work on the design updates to the Zephyr and later I have a call with Mack and Daisy.”

Jemma didn’t understand a word of that...except that he would be working, which would give her some time to find her balance. As much as she enjoyed having this shirtless, confident Fitz next to her, she wanted some time to look around the house. She was fairly certain Maddie wouldn’t tell on her.

“Don’t forget breakfast,” she called after him as he turned back towards the bedroom.

“Yes, Jemma.”

Well, it sounded like _that_ argument was still unresolved.

Once she heard the shower turn on she turned her attention to Maddie, who was snuggling against her shoulder with a thumb stuck in her mouth. 

“Hello, Maddie,” Jemma said softly into the little girl’s hair. “I’m your mum, apparently...let’s figure out how old you are, shall we?”

Jemma had already seen Maddie react to Fitz, and to her, and she could obviously say a few words. Crouching down, Jemma set the little girl on her feet, and almost clapped with pride when Maddie took several toddling steps before falling. Thinking through everything she had ever read about children and developmental psychology, startlingly little given her current situation, she calculated that Maddie was around a year old, give or take. So, old enough for solid food.

While Maddie played on the floor, Jemma looked for food and a spoon she could use to feed her daughter.

By the time Fitz came back through the kitchen, grabbing an apple and more tea on his way out to the “lab” - which in all honestly looked more like a shed to Jemma - she had Maddie in her high chair and was having minimal success feeding her.

“I thought Maddie didn’t like bananas.”

Oh. That would explain why she kept spitting every spoonful back out.

“Well...we don’t want to end up with a picky eater.” There...that made sense.

Fitz leaned over and kissed her again. This time it was a proper kiss at least, and she clung to him a little bit longer than she intended, sliding her lips against his. When he pulled back she could see desire reflected there. Maybe he wasn’t as unaffected by her as she had thought.

“Jemma…” Fitz started, and then seemed to make up his mind about something, “I was thinking maybe we could celebrate our anniversary on Friday.”

“Our anniversary?” she asked in confusion.

“I know it was a few weeks ago, but I feel awful that we got pulled into consulting again and didn’t get a chance to celebrate properly. Two years is a pretty big deal for us.”

He was looking at her so hopefully that she couldn’t say anything but yes, but she had no idea how to celebrate an anniversary with a man she hadn’t ever married.

“I’ll make reservations then. Someplace nice.”

Then he leaned down to Maddie.

“Bye Maddie. Be good for your mum today.”

“Buh, da-da-da.”

With a kiss for Maddie and one more for Jemma, he was gone, leaving the two of them alone for the day. Somehow they both managed to eat, and after changing out of banana-covered clothing, Jemma started her perusal of the house looking for clues. What she found were framed photographs of her and Fitz, from their days at the Academy to some more recent shots that also included Maddie. In the office she dug through the files searching for the notes she kept on every project she worked on, and turned up enough notebooks full of science she didn’t even understand to account for the last seven years. 

She tried pinching herself to see if she would wake up.

She kept looking around for answers, but nothing ever changed. For now at least, it seemed that she was married to Fitz, had a daughter, and lived in Perthshire. It might have been everything she dreamed of, if she had allowed herself the luxury of imagining it could really come true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know it doesn't seem quite fair. Fitz is in panic mode trying to save Jemma, and she wakes up in a much more peaceful future, with hot, older Fitz. For some reason every time I write it involves torturing Fitz a little bit (but I promise he'll be ok...and he'll get to be the hero and you know how he likes that). The Fitz in Jemma's chapters is CryoFitz, but 2 years after they get him back, so the anniversary he mentions is the one between CryoFitz and Jemma (not the one during season 5).
> 
> Oh, and even though she has made lists and tried to think things through, Jemma has no idea what is going on or what she is doing with this other Fitz. She is just as confused as we are.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think. You can find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after seeing what Jemma has been up to in the last chapter, now we're back in the lab with 2013 Fitz to see what progress he is making on figuring out what happened.
> 
> And, as always, a huge thank you to the fabulous @blancasplayground! It took me awhile to figure out how Skye and Fitz were going to work out this mystery and I couldn't have done it without her help.

_2013, The Bus_

_This was the clue they needed to save her, and Jemma had led him right to it._

The initial feeling of elation he experienced when the letters on the disc started to glow had faded as the hours passed. And Skye’s unending optimism wasn’t helping him think straight.

“Did you know SHIELD has a database of _everything_?” she asked him yet again. He rubbed his forehead with one hand to try to clear his head, his eyes darting back to the tablet set up beside his computer. Jemma’s heartbeat was even and she was still resting peacefully. Skye had pulled up the security camera for the med pod and split the screen on the tablet so he could literally keep an eye on her while he was...keeping an eye on her. “I matched the image you scanned to a few drawings. Can you pull them up on your magic table?”

Scowling at her, though without any real heat behind it, he said, “You know it doesn’t work like that.”

“Ugh, fine. I’ll project it onto the big screen.”

She waited for Fitz to come stand beside her before pushing the images up for them to examine together.

“This is the one I wanted to show you. It isn’t the same, but it’s pretty similar.” Skye pointed to a drawing of a gold disc with decorative markings on one side. 

It was similar...but this was Jemma. Similar wasn’t enough. They needed something more concrete. 

“What is it?”

“Well...it looks like some sort of 17th century jewelry. German maybe? That’s all the information that came up in the search results.”

“Well, what does that mean?” Fitz bit out in frustration. 

“I’m not sure.” She sighed, turning to him. “We’ll figure it out, Fitz.” She put her arms around him, patting his back awkwardly, and he dropped his head onto her shoulder. 

“It has already been hours and so far we have nothing.”

“Well...I do have one other idea…”

Fitz pulled back to look at her.

“I mean, Simmons pricked her finger on a needle...fell into a deep sleep. Sounds familiar right?”

Fitz just raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Come on Fitz! Sleeping Beauty...true love’s first kiss?”

“I don’t want to burst your bubble, Skye, but that’s a fairy tale...it isn’t real.”

He rolled his eyes at her, but she just laughed, slugging him in the arm.

“Hear me out. What if you just need to give Simmons true love’s first kiss?”

“Well, that’s...that’s just, just…” Fitz trailed off as his face flushed. 

Skye was waggling her eyebrows at him now, in all-out distraction mode. But it was working, he’d give her that. And maybe he’d give her something else, so she would let him get back to work.

“Even if it wasn’t just a story,” he managed to get out, glaring at her again, “I can’t give her a _first_ kiss.” At her obvious confusion he continued, “...because I’ve kissed her before.”

“What!”

“Yes, well, Simmons and I have been friends for a long time.” Fitz stood up to his full height, feeling a little defensive all of the sudden. He hadn’t expected quite that much of a reaction, and now he wished he hadn’t said it out loud.

“And?” Skye pushed him for more details. “I’ve had friends before and didn’t kiss them.”

He just stared at her for a moment in confusion.

“Fitz, _we_ are friends, right?” Pointing her finger between the two of them, she waited until he nodded before continuing. “And you’ve never kissed me.”

“Umm...did you want me to?”

“No!” Skye burst into laughter, and then laughed again when he made a face at her. “I’m just saying that kissing isn’t usually on the friendship to-do list.”

“Oh,” he said dismissively, “it doesn't mean anything. We’ve been best friends for almost 10 years. That’s a lot of holidays, nights out with friends, oh, and New Year's Eve celebrations.”

Skye just stared at him, eyes wide, with a smirk on her face. 

“What?” he challenged her, “Jemma gets really affectionate when she’s had too much to drink. You’ve seen her after a few beers.” Fitz started to feel uncomfortable with the way Skye was looking at him and shifted his focus back to the images she had found. 

“Wait...Simmons is your New Year’s Eve kiss? That’s so romantic!”

“It isn’t romantic...it’s just expedient. She doesn’t let me sleep until it’s officially the new year,” he said distractedly, eyes fixed on one of the smaller images. 

“Wow...it’s like you two are already married.”

“Skye...what is this one?”

“Hmmm?” Skye had been so focused on his relationship with Jemma that she hadn’t followed his return to the task at hand. “I’m not sure why that one came up with these results. It doesn’t look like the others—“

“—the stones. They look just like the ones on the 084.”

Skye clicked through the record on her laptop. “It looks like this is from a set of records at the Fridge.” She looked up at him then with a small frown. “It’s alien, Fitz.”

“See Skye, it is from space, not from a fairy tale.”

“Yes, I can see how that makes more sense,” Skye answered dryly. “So now what?” She looked uneasily toward the disc. This team didn’t exactly have a great track record with alien artifacts.

“Are there any other matches?”

“I can try running the search again, but specifically for the stones this time.” Skye returned to tapping on her keyboard. “Whoa,” she breathed out after a minute.

“What? What did you find?”

“There are tons of matches on the stones. And not just in the SHIELD records. Some of these go back as far as Ancient Egypt. It looks like they have been around for a long time.” 

“So, it looks like the stones are alien, but why were they set in this jewelry? There must be a reason.”

Moving to the holotable, Fitz pulled up the newly scanned 084, complete with glowing letters and compared it to the image of the alien stones. 

“Maybe whoever set the stones left us a message.”

“If they wanted us to read it, then they shouldn’t have made it all gibberish...but maybe we can write a program to sort through all the possible arrangements of letters and translate it into other languages,” Skye suggested. “That doesn’t look like English.”

Coulson’s voice echoed around the lab, intruding on Fitz and Skye’s workspace. 

“That looks like German. Are we dealing with Hydra technology?” At the looks he got from Fitz and Skye, he went on, “What? The umlauts...above the 'U'.”

“Actually, sir,” Ward broke in, studying the letters, “umlauts are used in Germanic, Uralic, and Turkic languages.”

“Oh, right,” Skye said under her breath, “I forgot he spoke six languages.”

Fitz grinned back at her and then answered Coulson’s question. “No, ah, not Hydra. I finished running the models on where we found the 084, and given the layers of sediment, it looks like this has been there for hundreds of years rather than decades.”

“Good. How is Agent Simmons?”

“Her vitals haven’t changed,” Fitz answered quietly. “Did you find any other artifacts? Skye and I thought there might be some sort of antidote with the other pieces.”

Coulson looked Fitz in the eye, pressed his lips together tightly, then answered, “No, we weren’t able to find anything else.”

May and Ward were talking quietly, arguing back and forth on the other side of the table. “Do you two have something?” Coulson asked. 

“Well, this is obviously a coded message—“ Ward started to say, but was interrupted by Fitz.

“We got that part, funnily enough,” Fitz said sarcastically, directing his frustration towards Ward. Why did Ward always have to act like the hero? 

“Fitz, you and Skye have been doing a great job here. No one doubts that.” Coulson added calmly. 

“How old is this? You said hundreds of years?” May asked Fitz. 

Skye answered for him since he was still glaring at Ward, who had turned the other way. “17th century, probably.”

“It is most likely a substitution cipher.” May said before Ward could open his mouth. 

“I agree,” Ward said anyway. 

“We need a keyword,” Skye said, turning towards Fitz. 

“Right.” Now that they had actually identified a problem to solve, Fitz could focus on solving it. 

“Does someone want to catch me up?” asked Coulson, with a blank look.

Skye opened her mouth to answer, but Ward jumped in again. “A substitution cipher uses the letters of the keyword to rearrange the alphabet. Once you list the all letters in the keyword, the rest of the alphabet follows in order.”

“Which allows you to decode the message,” added Skye.

When Ward gave her a look she shot back, “That’s computer science, Ward, not super spy stuff.”

“So, what’s the keyword?” Coulson asked.

They all turned to look at Fitz.

“I have no idea. It could be another dead end.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to banish his frustration.

“It’s a longshot without any idea of what the keyword might be...or what language it might be in. But I can try to set up a program that will test different keywords with the cipher,” Skye added, trying to soften the blow.

“Tell me what you have so far. I have to update the team at the hub.”

Fitz filled Coulson in on what they had learned. Glowing letters, German jewelry, alien stones. 

“Is that all?” Coulson asked, looking from Fitz to Skye. 

“Well, that is quite a lot given that Simmons isn’t here to help me.”

“Hey! I’m good at stuff too,” Skye protested, shaking her head.

“Right, because chasing after fairy tales instead of focusing on real science is going to help us save Jemma.”

He knew it wasn’t fair. She had helped him after all. It was just that they were no closer to finding an answer and everything they uncovered just led to more questions.

“Which fairy tale?” asked Coulson in interest, turning towards Skye.

Skye hesitated, looking back to Fitz as if to gauge his reaction. “I was just joking... but I thought this sounded like a curse.”

“Like magic?” Ward asked skeptically. 

“No, yes...but alien. Alien magic...is that a thing?”

“There is no such thing as magic, only science we don’t understand yet.” Fitz was starting to feel like a broken record with how often he needed to remind Skye of this fact. 

“Let’s not rule it out just yet,” Coulson interrupted before Skye could respond to Fitz, “anything is possible when we’re dealing with alien tech. I think we’ve all learned that.”

He looked meaningfully at each of them. 

Skye sighed and continued her explanation, with a quick glance towards Fitz. “Simmons pricked her finger on a needle and fell into a deep sleep. She needs a prince to wake her up.”

At the blank stares she got from Ward and May, she raised her eyebrows and tilted her head towards Coulson, who just smiled and said, “I don’t think they do fairy tales. But it could be that whatever these stones are is the origin of those tales. We can date this disc back to the 1600s, but the stones are older, right?”

“Yeah, Fitz thinks the stones were set in this disc along with this message, but we have no idea how old the stones are...maybe thousands of years.”

“Keep working on it. May, Ward, you are with me. As long as Simmons remains stable we should stay and try to locate any other pieces of the 084, in case they provide more clues.”

Once the others had left the lab, a blessed moment of silence fell. He had been so sure they would have figured this out by now. Picking up the tablet again, he watched Jemma sleep. He was going to have to do something he really didn’t want to, something he should have done already.

“Skye, I need to check on Jemma...when I get back I’ll take another look at the 084 and see if there is anything we missed.”

She didn’t look up from her frantic tapping on the keyboard, already lost in writing code, just raising a hand in his direction instead.

Fitz walked slowly towards the room where Jemma lay, still and silent, forcing his feet to keep moving. It was such a different state from the way that she normally brought light and happiness into his life that he wasn’t eager to see her that way again. But that wasn’t quite true. He actually had an almost desperate need to see her. Her absence was an ache that no one else could fill, and it was hard for him to focus without her. He knew he’d never deserve her, but he had hoped that in this moment he could at least save her. It might be enough for her to just be here. Because he didn’t know how to live without her.

But now that hours had passed with no solution, Fitz knew he had to do something he was dreading, which was the real reason for his reluctance to enter the med bay again. While he knew it was the first thing Jemma would have done, he wasn’t sure he could do it at all. But he had to.

Jemma hadn’t moved, of course, but he fussed with the sheet tucked around her anyway, brushing her hair back from her face and letting his finger linger on her soft skin. Pulling his hands back, in case Skye was watching, Fitz went back through the medical supplies Jemma kept stocked in case of emergencies. She probably hadn’t imagined that she would be the one needing them. Pulling out the small needle he rolled up the sleeve on her blouse...and froze.

He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t, even if he understood how it all worked. But Jemma needed an IV and he didn’t think anyone else knew how. Maybe he should have asked though. That way maybe he wouldn’t be standing here with a needle in his hand and a look of terror on his face.

He continued to stand there, debating with himself, until there was a soft knock at the door.

“Do you need a hand, Fitz?” It was May.

“I, uh...Simmons just needs an IV.” He looked guiltily at the needle in his hand, and May raised an eyebrow.

“I can do it if you hand me the supplies.” She didn’t give any further explanation, just went to wash her hands.

May was efficient and competent, like she was at pretty much everything. Fitz wondered what kind of life she must have had up to this point to be able to do so many things with ease.

“Is there anything else she needs?” May asked when she had finished. She was giving Jemma’s hand a little pat, and her stoic expression broke for a minute. The look on her face was almost tender, and it stayed that way when she turned back to Fitz.

“No, ah...that should do it. I’ll just...just keep an eye on her for a while.”

May gave him a knowing look that made him flush more than all of Skye’s questions did. But at this point it didn’t really matter if everyone else knew how he felt about Jemma. He didn’t think he was really all that good at hiding it anyway. The only thing that mattered was getting her back.

“Make sure you get some rest. You aren’t any good to her if you’re burned out.”

“Yeah...I will.”

May left the room without further comment and Fitz sat down on the bed next to Jemma, taking her hand in his. He meant to just stay for a few minutes before heading back to the lab, but being beside her was so relaxing that he fell asleep telling her about what they had discovered so far about the 084.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, an IV might not exactly be field medicine, but I thought that if anyone could list that as a special skill it would be May (and also for storytelling purposes we are just going to ignore the other medical things they'd need to do - there are some things I don't want Fitz to have to worry about). 
> 
> The next chapter will flip back to Jemma's POV and we'll see how she is handling things with Fitz and baby Maddie.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think. You can also find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it has been so long since I updated this. Hopefully this chapter makes up for the wait. 
> 
> As always, a huge thank you to @blancasplayground for being amazingly encouraging and also for being the best beta ever!

_Perthshire 2020_

With the first rays of sunlight streaking through the open window, Jemma slipped out from beneath Fitz’s arm, and silently crept out of the bedroom. As had become her habit the last few days, she took advantage of these stolen moments alone in the morning to look for any new clues as to how she got here, and how to get home. But to be honest, she hadn’t realized that there was something so important missing from her life. She had spent the last decade chasing science and pushing herself to learn more about, well, everything. So even though she knew she didn’t belong here, the last three days had been some of the best of her life. 

Being here with Fitz was both the same and different.  _ He _ was both the same and different. He was still Fitz, her rock and her best friend. But the way she felt when she was with him was completely new. Well, mostly new. There were times in the past when she had felt herself pulled to him, desire blooming inside her. But reminding herself that they were friends and needed to stay that way was normally enough to keep her from thinking too much about what it would be like to kiss him, and how it would feel to have his hands on her body. But now...now she knew what that felt like, and she wasn’t sure she could go back to how things were before. Even if this was just a coma-induced fantasy, when she closed her eyes it wasn’t just the memory of Fitz, this dream Fitz, touching her that made her go all hot inside. She could also picture her Fitz and knew she wanted this with him as well. But she had no idea how he felt. Sometimes she could feel his eyes on her and thought maybe he was thinking of her the same way...but other times it was clear they would never be anything more than friends.

She needed to figure out how to get home. And soon. Because beyond her feelings for Fitz, she wasn’t sure how she would go back to life without Maddie, and the longer she stayed, the harder it would be. The little girl, a living reminder of what she shared with Fitz in this place, was sweet and loving. Jemma hadn’t really considered how motherhood would fit into her life, but they had found a balance between science, working on projects for the team, and this family they had created. It would be easy to get lulled into complacency and just live out this dream. But that wasn’t what she wanted. Everything here was easy and settled. She felt secure. But she wanted to experience their first kiss, the uncertainty and excitement of falling in love, and their first fight as a couple. Because even though the proof was all there in front of her, she couldn’t be sure she was in love with this Fitz. She hardly knew him, as strange as that sounded.

Taking another sip of tea, she planned out her day. Even though this was Fitz’s day with Maddie, she had agreed to watch their daughter so he could finish some work before their date tonight. Their anniversary. She certainly didn’t mind spending more time with Maddie. She had spent a lot of time with her over the last few days, both on her own and with Fitz. After that first disastrous breakfast, she thought she had taken to being a mother quite well. Bathtime had been an unexpected adventure, but Maddie had squealed with laughter and Jemma found she didn’t mind the water all over the floor as much as she might have. And on her day to work in the lab, she had spent the entire time trying to understand her own notes and missing her little girl. It was amazing to think of all the things they had learned in these last few years, even if she didn’t really understand it all. 

Her thoughts drifted back to the date, as they had done often these last few days. Her first date with Fitz would be their second anniversary. When he had first suggested it, she was a little afraid of what that would mean. But the longer she was trapped in the future, the more reasonable it had seemed to go along with whatever presented itself and see where it all led. She had no other ideas, so as unreasonable as it sounded, maybe she was meant to accomplish something here before she could go home. She had discovered a dress in her closet that still had the tags on it, probably meant for this very occasion. It had thin straps and was cut low in the back, with a skirt that flared a little bit above her knee. She knew it fit perfectly because she had tried it on yesterday, twirling a little bit in front of the mirror. It left a lot of skin bare, but she liked the way it made her feel. And she was pretty sure Fitz would like it...not that she was wearing it for him. Or just for him anyway. She had promised herself a long time ago to not let her decisions be driven by what someone else wanted for her.

Her rambling thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Maddie’s voice calling for her. Putting down her cup of now-cold tea, Jemma stood up and went to get her daughter ready for the day.

* * *

The day had been going smoothly, Jemma had just finished feeding Maddie a healthy lunch and they were doing some developmentally appropriate activities that Jemma had found during her early morning research. Her anticipation for the evening had been growing steadily as the hours ticked by and was taking up more and more of her thoughts, until Maddie started to get fussy. She supposed all children got fussy sometimes, though in the last few days Maddie had been a little angel. As she tried to pinpoint the reason for this change in behavior, her hand smoothed over Maddie’s hair and she felt hot, clammy skin. Panic started to rise in her. Maddie was too hot. Even without a thermometer she knew that. Slipping her feet into the shoes by door and scooping Maddie up in her arms, she rushed to the lab to find Fitz. She felt her body shaking and Maddie was now crying pitiful little wails. Not even checking to see if he was in the middle of something, she pulled the door open.

“What’s wrong?” Fitz moved around the table to wrap his arms around Jemma.

“Sh-she’s hot.” Jemma was practically trembling now, and Fitz took Maddie from her arms, which immediately calmed the child.

Fitz smoothed Maddie’s hair back and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “It’s okay Maddie girl. Just a fever.”

The fact that Fitz wasn’t worried calmed her a little, but Jemma still felt the adrenaline surge through her body.

“I think the acetaminophen is in the kitchen...and the dosing instructions from doctor should be there as well.” Seeming to sense how upset she was, Fitz laughed and shifted Maddie in his arms so he could rub his free hand on Jemma’s back. “How is it that aliens and killer robots don’t scare you, but a fever sends you into a panic?”

She decided to ignore his comment about aliens and robots and instead answered the second part of his question, “It’s Maddie.”

“I know.” And she knew he did know what she meant. He pressed a kiss to her lips, sending those now-familiar tingles through her.

As they walked back towards the house, with the back door still wide open since she hadn’t bothered to shut it behind her in her haste, he said quietly, “I’ll cancel our reservations for tonight.”

“Oh, Fitz, I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault, Jemma. This is probably better anyway. We can celebrate together, the three of us...until Maddie’s bedtime at least.” He gave her a wicked grin and she felt wetness gather between her thighs. Just his voice was enough to get her wet. She didn’t know if she’d survive if, or more realistically  _ when _ , he actually put some effort into making her want him.

She licked her lips in anticipation, smiling when she saw his eyes linger on her mouth.

Measuring the liquid into a dropper, Fitz tickled Maddie’s chin until he could coax her into swallowing the medicine. Jemma reached for the little girl, her heart finally slowing to a normal pace, and cradled Maddie in her arms as she headed towards the rocking chair. Some sleep would help.

Fitz brought over a sippy cup of water, and headed back to finish his work. “It shouldn’t take me too much longer. I’ll knock off as soon as I finish the specs.”

* * *

The evening had been better than perfect. Somehow Fitz had managed to string up some fairy lights around the kitchen while she had been in the shower, and Maddie had spent the next hour trying to reach for them, coming up empty handed every time and looking puzzled. After Jemma had taken Maddie to her room to get her settled in her cot, she had come back to the kitchen to find music playing softly in the background and Fitz holding out a glass of wine to her. She didn’t usually drink wine, but she supposed just this once it was more appropriate than gin. And the wine would leave her head clearer for...well, for whatever happened next.

“You look beautiful.” She knew it was the expected thing to say, but looking into his face as she took the proffered glass of wine she knew he meant it.

“You look nice yourself.” And he did. He was wearing a simple blue button down shirt that almost matched his eyes. And rather than adding a tie, which is how she had become accustomed to seeing him when they worked together, he had just left the top button undone, giving her just a glimpse of the white shirt underneath.

Taking a sip of the wine, she was surprised by the sweetness. She must have made a face because Fitz apologized immediately. 

“Sorry, I should have warned you.” He grimaced. “I know it isn’t your favorite, but it is the same wine we had at our wedding, so I thought…”

“No, it’s perfect,” she reassured him, taking another sip before setting the glass on the table.

He held out his hand to her and she placed his fingers in his grasp, letting him pull her into his arms. They swayed to the music, her hands resting lightly on his chest, toying with the buttons on his shirt, while his hands were firm around her waist. In moments like this it was easy to believe it was all real. Because she wanted to believe it so badly. She knew it wasn’t a fairy tale, but with the twinkling lights and Fitz’s arms wrapped around her it felt pretty close. 

He broke the silence first. She had rested her head against him, and was enjoying the way he felt pressed up against her too much to care about making conversation.

“Can you believe we ended up here?”

She made a non-committal murmur in response, having no idea how they had gotten here. 

“It’s funny, you know. The last few days you have reminded me so much of that girl I met back at the Academy.”

Jemma froze. She didn’t have a great impression of herself from those days. She mostly remembered tagging along after him since he was the only person she felt comfortable with, and then eventually it just became  _ right _ . 

“I should have known all the way back then, but I think it took me until you dragged me into the field —“

At this clearly unfair statement she pulled her head back to look at him. 

“—I didn’t drag you anywhere,” she protested. 

He kissed her gently then, just a brush across the lips really. But it left her wanting more and she followed his lips as they retreated until he understood her intent. 

They had stopped any pretense of dancing and just stood there, breathing unsteady as they separated and he pushed his forehead against hers. 

“You didn’t drag me into the field,” he agreed. “I would have followed you anywhere.” 

After a moment he continued. “And that’s when I knew I loved you. I mean, I always loved you, but it was then that I realized I couldn’t picture any version of my life that didn’t have you in it.”

She had no idea what to say to him, but at the realization that her Fitz back on the Bus might already be in love with her, a smile spread across her face. 

He must have assumed that smile was for him, because he continued, “But I suppose we’ve earned this...after everything the universe has thrown at us.”

His voice had gotten quiet and he turned his face away from her. She didn’t want to hear the pain that had crept into his voice, but she didn’t know how to comfort him. Except, then she did. This was still her Fitz. She reached up to touch his cheek, but before she could do anything else, his lips crashed into hers, desperate and seeking. The desire that had been building throughout the day hit her all at once again and she moaned into the kiss. Needing something more, she backed up, pulling him after her until she bumped into the table. Using the sturdy surface to give her an anchor she kissed him again, gripping the fabric of his shirt tightly in her hands. She tried to hook her foot around his leg to pull him closer, but she couldn’t quite manage it. His fingers were trailing along the exposed skin on her back and the tiny zings of pleasure kept throwing her off-balance.

She pushed herself up onto the table, and sent a silent thank you to whoever had selected this wonderful piece of furniture - probably Fitz, and pulled him between her thighs, wrapping her legs around him. This new position allowed her to keep kissing him, but also let her do something about her need to feel him against her. Seeking friction, she rocked her hips and he pulled back slightly at the contact. She could feel the hard length against her, and she locked her ankles behind his back in order to get more leverage. This time when she moved against him he let her, his tongue pushing into her mouth, mimicking the press of their bodies. His hands came to rest on her thighs, pushing the fabric of her dress even higher. His fingers traced patterns across her heated skin, and the as they inched higher she relaxed her hold on him, finally letting her legs fall back down to dangle off the end of the table.

He moved a step back from her, ending the kiss, but still touching her. Her eyes were fixed on the progress of his fingers as they finally brushed against the fabric of her knickers, his knuckle grazing the fabric covering her. The touch, even through the thin barrier sent another wave of heat through her, and she let out a sound she couldn’t quite recognize. She tensed her body in anticipation...and then he stopped, one hand resting lightly on her thigh while the other reached for her hand.

Looking into her eyes, he raised her hand to his lips and gently kissed her knuckles before helping her down from the table and smoothing her clothing.

Jemma looked at him in confusion, not sure how they had gotten here from the intensity of a moment before. Mortification washed over her. How had she misunderstood his intention. Here she was practically mauling him in the kitchen and he had never said anything that would suggest that is what he wanted. She had assumed that since they had a child -- but of course that didn’t mean anything now. And now that she thought about it, aside from that first morning he hadn’t done anything more than kiss her. She thought it was because she was slipping out of bed before he woke up, but maybe he wasn’t interested in her like that. Or maybe it was just that her future self wasn’t quite so impulsive.

“Come to bed, Jemma. I want to make love to you.”

The words, low and heated, burned through her, and her pussy throbbed. She had never felt such raw desire for someone, and when he tugged on the hand still tucked into his she followed him wordlessly down the hall to their bedroom.

Once the door was closed behind her, he pulled her close once again, this time taking the lead with long, slow kisses that left her legs shaky. His hands were resting on her hips again, but this time she could feel the heat of his skin burning through her dress, and the small movement of his thumbs shifting the fabric was making it hard to concentrate on anything but him.

When she finally had to pull away to take a breath, his mouth descended on her neck and his hands moved up her back to the zipper of her dress. Jemma sucked in a breath, playing this scene out to its logical conclusion. The thin straps and cut of the back meant that there was no way to wear a bra. The only other clothing she had on were her knickers, and she trembled to think about standing before him just wearing the silky fabric once he had gotten her dress off.

He slowly uncovered the skin on her back, sliding the zipper down one click at a time and using his other hand to trace across her back. It was agony, and easily the most erotic thing she had ever felt. She could feel the wetness soaking into her knickers, and all he was doing was touching her back. If he ever got close to more sensitive areas she might just combust.

Her fingers were fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, and she finally reached the bottom as he tugged her zipper all the way down. Raising his hands to her shoulders he pushed the straps down and the dress pooled around her waist. She had let him go so the straps could slide off her arms, and now she felt completely exposed to him. To distract herself from his eyes roaming her breasts she pushed the fabric down over her hips and let it fall to the floor. 

His breath hitched and she leaned in to kiss his neck as she tried to pull his shirt off his arms. She felt very self-conscious, and she wasn’t sure why.  _ This  _ Fitz had seen her before. It was just a little disconcerting that he knew her body so well when this was her first time with him. His hands skimmed up her sides, leaving a trail of goosebumps, before tracing along her ribs and sliding up to cup her breasts. Weighing them in his hands, his thumbs swept across her nipples, first one and then the other. She ground her hips against him again and he dropped his lips to one breast, tracing her skin with his tongue before drawing her nipple into his mouth, giving it a little tug with his teeth. It felt like electricity raced down her body, straight to her clit. Feeling like she could no longer hold herself upright, she clung to him, fingers scrabbling through his hair, missing the curls that would have allowed her to find an anchor. 

Her heart dropped into her stomach when she found herself in the air, moving towards the bed, one of his arms wrapped around her knees. Dropping her lightly on top of the duvet he followed her down, whispering in her ear, “You’ve done so much for me, let me take care of you tonight.” 

He didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer, which was fortuitous since Jemma didn’t think she could force any words out of her mouth at this point. Or move. So when he pushed at her shoulder to roll her over onto her stomach she let the momentum take her, resting her head on her pretzeled arms. 

She felt him move down the bed and settle behind her, and she lifted her hips to allow him to enter her, her inner walls pulsing in anticipation. But rather than his cock pressing up against her, his hands came down on either side of her, supporting his weight and he leaned down to kiss the back of her neck. The shock of the unexpected contact made her press her hips down into the bed and the bunched up duvet offered some relief as she ground against it.

Her breath came out in little exhales in time with the press of hot, wet kisses across her back. She wiggled her hips experimentally, trying to use the bed for friction against her aching nub. Fitz’s mouth had reached the small of her back and his tongue was moving in little circles that she could easily imagine on another part of her body.

Desire was burning inside her and when his fingers started to tug on the only fabric still covering her, she shifted her hips again to help him. Settling back onto the bed as he pulled her knickers off her legs, she rubbed into the mattress again, seeking the release he wasn’t giving her. 

His hand came down on her ass, hard enough to tingle but not to hurt.

“Not yet, Jemma.” His voice was raspy and tight.

She froze, less in response to his words than from the shock of what he had just done, and how it had made her feel. She had never considered that she would enjoy being touched like that, but at the feel of his hand, pleasure shot through her and her pussy clenched again. 

“Fitz, please,” she whimpered.

Fitz inhaled sharply, but gave no other indication that he had heard her.

His hands were on her thighs now, finally getting closer to where she needed him, and she spread her legs further apart. He rewarded her by sliding his fingers across her folds, slipping across the wetness, finally bumping against her clit before pulling back.

She moaned and tried to chase his fingers, pushing her ass back towards him, and he relented, pushing one finger, and then two, inside her. His long fingers stroked her body in a way she hadn’t imagined was possible. Practice really did make perfect, and Fitz seemed to know her better than she knew herself. She started rocking her hips against the bed in rhythm with his thrusting fingers, seeking more pressure.

The anticipation building inside her was about to break, and Fitz must have sensed it too, because he pulled his fingers from her body and rubbed small, tight circles against her swollen bud, driving her over the edge. Tiny tremors shook her as her body clenched and released, the tension draining from her.

Still shaking from the force of her orgasm, she turned to her back and pulled him on top of her. Pulling his face down to hers, she pressed her tongue into mouth and worked his belt buckle open. 

“I need you inside me.”

“Jemma...this isn’t what I had in mind for tonight,” he said, his expression rueful.

“Mmmm,” was her only response as she pulled at his trousers and pants. She gave up on trying to get them off past his thighs and instead busied herself stroking his cock. He thrust into her hand with each stroke. The time for doubt was long past. She wanted to feel every inch of him against her as he pounded inside her. With her mind blissfully blank except for that thought she pushed up to sitting, forcing him back on his heels.

She pulled his shirt up and raised up on her knees to get it over his head, pressing kisses on his chest, before scraping her nails down over his stomach.

Fitz grabbed her hands, kissing her knuckles once again and gently pushed her back down on the bed. He stood to remove the rest of his clothing and Jemma chewed at her bottom lip as her eyes drank him in. She’d never be able to think about Fitz again without remembering this moment.

“Do you want to be on top?

Jemma just shook her head and held her arms out to him.

He looked puzzled for a moment, and Jemma realized he must have been expecting her to want to ride him. And while she looked forward to the opportunity, for this first time with him all she wanted was to feel his body and look into his eyes while he made her feel...everything.

Kissing her again, he knelt between her thighs and she wrapped her legs around him. She thrust her hips at him impatiently and he positioned his cock at her entrance, pushing all the way inside in one motion.

She felt deliciously full and her muscles tightened around him as she adjusted to the feeling of him inside her.

She wriggled beneath him and he let out a groan. His motions were slow and she tightened her legs around him to urge him on, shifting the angle of her hips so each movement drove him deeper inside. She reached up to touch his face, cupping his cheek so he had to turn his face towards her. His expression was strained and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. 

“Let go, Fitz,” she whispered, looking deeply into his eyes.

“I love you, Jemma.”

She knew she couldn’t say the words back to him. Not yet. So she was relieved when he moved faster inside her, driving to the hilt with each thrust, and the sounds of their combined pleasure filled the room.

Jemma knew she was close again and closed her eyes for a moment against the intensity of his gaze. Just before falling apart again, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer, so their breath mingled and their noses bumped.

Her inner muscles tightened around him as she climaxed and she felt the answering pulse from his body as he came deep inside her.

They lay like that for a long time, racing heartbeats slowing and breathing finally becoming steady. Jemma memorized the feel of his body and the way that he fit against her - and inside her. When she finally fell asleep, content and completely relaxed, it was with the thought that she didn’t know what she would do without this life she had come to love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...there is no way season 1 Jemma was going to stand a chance against an older Fitz. And she is getting really used to the idea of this life. She hasn't really been putting in much effort into finding a way home. Luckily her Fitz is hard at work in the lab looking for an answer.
> 
> I'd love to hear your comments or feedback! You can also find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6 brings us back to Skye and Fitz working in the lab. The timeline doesn't exactly match with the previous chapter. Time is passing more quickly for Jemma.
> 
> As always a huge thank you to @blancasplaygound! I'm not sure what I'd do without her help and encouragement.

_2013, The Bus_

Fitz was startled awake by a high-pitched beeping, the sound echoing through his brain. He felt like he had just laid down and exhaustion hit him again as he tried to turn over. He reached his hand out to the side to turn off his alarm and realized that he was still in the med bay beside Jemma...which meant that the beeping indicated something very, very wrong.

He tried to wake himself all the way up and found that his right hand had been gripping her left hand while he slept. While they both slept. Feeling a little uncomfortable at the idea that he had been touching her while she was unconscious, still relying on her for comfort, he released her hand and rolled off the bed. In his haste to put some distance between the two of them, he lost his balance and tripped over the cords that led from the monitor to the wall. He grabbed the offending machine to right himself just as Skye entered, out of breath. She seemed to be running to his rescue a lot recently. And while he appreciated the sentiment he didn’t like the fact that he kept making a fool of himself.

Still disoriented from waking so suddenly, Fitz couldn’t do anything except stare at her, eyes wide.

“I didn’t do it.” He pointed towards the monitor that was showing Jemma’s heartbeat, fast and a little uneven now. Skye just rolled her eyes in response.

“I know you didn’t do it. I could see everything.” She held the tablet up to prove her point, gesturing to the video feed still displayed on the screen.

“You were watching me sleep?” He wasn’t sure why this question was one he needed an answer to at this moment, but for some reason those were the words coming out of his mouth. 

“What time is it?” he tried asking a more pertinent question, since the answer might actually help him get his bearings.

“It’s three in the morning...and no, I wasn’t watching you sleep. I was just keeping an eye on Jemma’s vitals since you were taking a break.”

“I wasn’t taking a break, I was…” At Skye’s raised eyebrows he swallowed and changed direction. He wasn’t really sure what he had been doing sleeping next to Jemma anyway. It wasn’t like it was a conscious choice...it had just happened. “Can you make sure there is nothing setting the machine off? I’ll check the connections over here.”

Moving back to the still form on the bed, he made sure the leads were still attached correctly, realizing too late that maybe he shouldn’t be the one sliding his hands under her shirt...again. Her skin felt warmer than it had before, but she was still pale and unmoving. He reached for her hand, the same one he had clung to in his sleep, and felt for her pulse. The same rhythm beeping on the machine pulsed beneath his fingers. Jemma would know exactly what to do if one of them had needed help, yet she wasn’t able to help herself. And it seemed that even the rest of them put together weren’t up to the task.

But even as his thoughts went down the path they had traveled so frequently over the last hours, the beeping of the machine slowed and started evening out, her pulse under his fingers becoming slower and weaker again.

“Fitz, you did it!” Skye shot him an impressed look that he knew he didn’t deserve.

“I didn’t _do_ anything. That’s the problem. I have no idea why any of this is happening.” Fitz thrust his free hand through his hair.

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Skye was looking pointedly at where Fitz was still holding onto Jemma’s hand, now rubbing small circles on her wrist. Realizing the direction of her thoughts, he dropped Jemma’s hand abruptly, letting it fall back on the bed with a muffled thump.

“She seems to be alright for now...maybe we should get back to work?” The terror he had felt a moment before had faded slightly into more of a steady panic. Even though her vitals were stable again, they weren’t any closer to figuring out how to get her back. And the fact that her heartbeat had been so fast and erratic was concerning. Hopefully it didn’t happen again. It had done funny things to the pounding of his heart as well.

“Here...you should take this back.” Fitz reached for the tablet Skye was holding out to him. Apparently this was his security blanket now, though seeing the readout on the screen wasn’t nearly as comforting as holding her hand had been.

As they walked back towards the lab, Skye filled him in on everything she had been doing while he had been away, making him feel really guilty for falling asleep beside Jemma. Not that he needed to feel guilty about falling asleep _beside_ Jemma, more that he had been sleeping while Skye had been working.

“How do you have so much energy?” he finally interrupted when she paused for breath.

“Lots of coffee...but Fitz, listen,” she grabbed his arm and steered him towards her laptop, “I have the program running, but if you have any ideas for what the keyword might be, that would help a lot. We could decode this message much faster than trying to break it with brute force. We don’t really have enough computing power here for that.”

She spun the computer towards him so he could see permutations of the letters from the disc race across the screen as her program did its job. He felt a wave of gratitude towards her. While he preferred the way that Jemma was always in sync with him when they worked together, he had to admit that Skye was much calmer in a crisis than the two of them ever were.

“How did you get the list of words to use as keywords?”

“Oh, I just used an online German dictionary --”

“--I was going to suggest German. I think Coulson was right about that,” Fitz jumped in, finally ready to work on this problem again. “But what about word frequencies?”

“That’s what took me so long to set it up. I figured it made sense to start with more common words, though in this case it could be something more obscure to make the code difficult to crack.” She pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side. Fitz almost smiled. Skye was so different from Jemma, but he could see her thinking through this problem in the same way Jemma would. It made him glad all over again that Skye was here. Coulson was right. They could figure this out. They just needed time...which he wasn’t entirely sure they had. 

“I had some code that I was able to reuse, but I had to text mine some older German books first --”

“-- to make sure the word patterns would be the same as in the coded message.” Fitz finished for her.

“Exactly! But stop interrupting me. You are almost as bad as Ward,” she scolded him, shaking her head before turning her laptop around again. “Right now it is going through the most common words in the data set, and if we are lucky we’ll come up with the keyword this way.”

“Okay.” Fitz blew out a breath through his mouth and rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension in his back. While falling asleep with Jemma had calmed his mind, it had not been easy on his body to be cramped in the space beside her. “I’m going to go through every part of the disc again to see if there is anything else that can help us. Whoever left this message didn’t know we’d have this kind of computing technology, so the keyword has to be here...somewhere.”

He started back to work at the holotable, zooming in and out on the scanned image, trying to understand more about the construction of the disc. It helped him look for inconsistencies now that he knew the disc and the stones were two separate things, merged together to carry the coded message along with the stones and the tiny needle that caused...well, he still didn’t know what it caused. 

He already knew that the stones could be removed, but he was also aware that he could damage the disc when he removed the stones from their settings. He took his time carefully examining each part of the disc, first with the image on the holotable and then again with the disc itself, though he was careful not to touch the pin or dislodge the stones. 

While he worked, mostly in silence except for when he needed to record notes about his findings, Skye kept up a steady stream of comments regarding her own research. With her program running in the background she shifted her attention to looking into the fairy tale and trying to figure out if there was a connection between the stones and the stories. From where he was standing, it sounded like she was especially interested in the origins of the story and if she could match that up with one of the images of the stones she had discovered in the database earlier. 

“So according to this, there are several different versions of Sleeping Beauty...there is the German version from the Grimm brothers, Basile’s Italian story _Sun, Moon, and Talia_ , Perrault’s French story from the 1600s, and then a really old story, _Perceforest_ , from the 1300s. Oh, that is interesting...” Skye stopped talking and Fitz looked up from where he was making measurements.

“What’s interesting?”

“Hmmm?” Skye looked over at him and bit her lip, like she was trying to hold back a laugh. “Oh, it’s just that in some of the stories instead of a kiss, the prince actually has sex with the sleeping princess.

Fitz felt his face get hot, and then Skye did laugh. “Coulson isn’t going to make you have sex with Simmons...don’t worry. Apparently this is all symbolic anyway.”

“What kind of fairy tales are you looking at Skye?” Fitz knew he was flustered and that Skye would probably tease him about this for years...forever even. But he prompted her to keep talking in order to distract himself from the image that had just popped into his head, the image of Jemma in his bed. A very alive and awake Jemma, not the sleeping version of her he could see on the tablet when he glanced over to check on her.

“Well, whoever made the disc and left the coded message wasn’t referring to the Disney version of the story...it isn’t all about true love and having a prince come to your rescue.” 

Fitz frowned at her. 

“Okay...maybe that is exactly what the story is about. Just a really douchey prince.” Skye was quiet for a minute, and then said more seriously, “Jemma would actually hate this. We are chasing down a lead that casts her in the role of the damsel in distress waiting for a man to rescue her.” 

Fitz grunted at Skye in response. He wouldn’t mind rescuing Jemma, but Skye was right. Jemma might not appreciate that. She liked doing things herself. The Jemma in his mind smiled seductively at him and he shook his head to clear his thoughts, turning his attention back to the disc.

“Well, I need a break...I think that’s all I’m going to find on Sleeping Beauty right now.” Skye let out a yawn that she tried to muffle with the back of her hand. “Do you need anything?”

“No...you get some rest. I’m just going to finish with this,” he said, gesturing at the table in front of him.

Once Skye had left the room, he allowed his thoughts to turn back to the idea of kissing Jemma. It wasn’t like he’d never thought of it before. He had felt that overwhelming urge to kiss her burn through him many times over the years, all the way back to their time at the Academy. But he had always managed to push it back to the part of his mind that held all of the other things that could never happen in real life, like unicorns and magic. Logic always won out in the end. And on those occasions when she had pressed her lips to his in a friendly gesture, in celebration of the New Year or when she was particularly happy and just a little bit drunk, well, he had forced himself to remember that she was his best friend, and nothing more.

The way his body reacted to her in those moments was just biology. That’s what Jemma would say anyway. So this was all new. He felt strangely free to think about kissing her now. Now that she was in a strange limbo and he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance. Skye had put the idea in his head and now it wouldn’t be dislodged. He wanted to kiss Jemma more than he had ever wanted anything before. He wanted her to wake up and he wanted her to kiss him back. The idea of kissing her while she slept made him uncomfortable...unless she was still sleeping because they had already made love. That would be alright. But, unfortunately, he was pretty sure she didn’t want him to kiss her. It had been a long time since they had shared one of those innocent kisses, now that he thought about it. It had been before they went into the field, and as he thought back over the months before that, he realized he couldn’t really remember the last time. Feeling a strange sense of loss over the fact that he couldn’t recall the last time he was close to her like that, he got back to work. If he was going to get a chance to kiss her, then he had to wake her up first.

By the time he had finished his analysis several more hours had passed. Skye had taken a quick nap, and Coulson had stopped by to say that he was heading out again with May and Ward, but if there was any change with Jemma to let him know. But now Skye was back, digging up more stories to tie the stones to the “curse,” as she called it.

“Look at this, Fitz,” she said, pushing several images up onto the screen. “I found stories of girls who mysteriously fell into a deep sleep in all of the places that correspond to these images. Mesopotamia, Greece, and Egypt thousands of years ago, Germany, Italy, and France during the Middle Ages, and America in the 1700s.”

Fitz looked up at the screen and then back down at the disc in front of him. It seemed like she had been right...although logically he knew that meant they were looking at some sort of alien technology and not magic. Making up his mind, he added, “Skye, I’m going to try to get these stones out.”

“Alright,” she said, jumping down from the stool she was perched on, “what do you need?”

“For now, just stay as far away as possible. I don’t want you to accidentally touch the pin...and there might be another one on the second stone.”

“What about you?” Skye went back to her laptop and looked uneasily at him.

“I’ll be careful,” he answered with a tight smile back at her.

Taking out a small screwdriver, he pried the disc apart at the marking near the stone. The first one popped out easily. Leaning his head down closer he tried to pry the second stone out and realized it was stuck. Applying a bit more force, he wedged the screwdriver into the slot and the stone popped out and skidded across the floor.

Skye let out an uneasy laugh and went to pick it up.

“Don’t touch it!” He yelled at her, for the second time in two days.

But again, it was too late and Skye already had the stone in her hand. She jumped when the pin slid out of the stone, but rather than piercing her skin, it just grazed her fingernail. She looked at him for a second and then walked over to place the stone on the table.

“If I haven’t passed out yet, I guess I’m okay, right? Because I don’t think my Prince Charming is on this plane,” she joked.

“Well, ah, at least we figured out how the mechanism works I guess...but you should probably wash your hands...just in case.”

Turning the stones over, Fitz didn’t see anything usual. Though given the fact that there was a mechanism inside the stone that allowed a pin to pop out and stab anyone who touched it, it seemed like this was a man-made --.or alien-made -- material, rather than a natural stone.

Setting the stones aside, he reached for the disc again, and his breath caught in his throat.

“Skye…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Look..there are words here...where the stones were.”

“What do they say?” Skye asked as she came around the table to stand next to him.

“I’m not sure. The letters are hard to make out...and I think it is in German.” 

He grabbed some tools and tried to clean off the corroded metal, without damaging the writing. Unlike the coded message, these words were just scratched into the surface.

“Is that the keyword?” Skye was practically buzzing with excitement and Fitz was trying to keep his own elation more tempered.

“It looks like there are two seperate words...one is ‘segen’ and the other is ‘verwünschung’.”

“How do you spell those?” Skye moved back to her laptop and stopped her program that was still trying random keywords.

“Here, let me scan it.” He scanned the disc to the holotable and when the 3D image appeared, he zoomed in so Skye could transcribe the letters. “What do they mean?”

“Let’s see...one means blessing...and the other means curse.” Skye looked at him in concern. “Which one should we try first?”

“Let’s try curse first,” Fitz said quietly, coming to stand behind Skye so he could see the words on her screen.

“Ok...decoding...parsing into words...and translating,” she grabbed his hand while they waited for the letter to appear. “And, it is absolute gibberish...that’s good, right?”

“I think so. Try the other one.”

Skye tapped on the keyboard and started the program again, this time using the second keyword.

“Oh...that was fast. It looks like it decoded into actual German words.”

Fitz stared at the words on the screen, dread and jubilation warring within him. Skye seemed just as reluctant to actually translate the words and for a moment they just stared at the stanza of German words that neither of them understood.

Ein geschenk segen, ein fluch verwünschung  
Wenn der finger durchbohrt und blutet  
Zeit nur für das herzenswunsch  
Ewiger schlaf oder der wahre kuss der liebe

After a moment Skye clicked on the button that would translate what they both hoped was a clue, and words immediately appeared on the screen.

A blessing, a curse  
When the finger pierces and bleeds  
Time only for the heart's desire  
Eternal sleep or the true kiss of love

“What is that supposed to mean?” The words were out before Fitz could stop them.

“I’m not sure. Maybe it makes more sense in German...but it sounds a lot like Sleeping Beauty...and also what happened to Jemma.” Skye turned to Fitz, a serious expression on her face, and he braced himself for the worst. Skye was never completely serious, and he took this as a bad sign.

“Fitz, I think maybe you _should_ kiss her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know any German, so what you saw in this chapter was courtesy of Google Translate (from English to German and then back to English).
> 
> They figured out the secret message, but Fitz still doesn't know what to do. Poor Fitz (I mean, it says true love's kiss...what else is he waiting for?!?)
> 
> I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts! You can also find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes us back to Jemma and Future!Fitz. Warnings for this chapter include SupportiveHusband!Fitz and AwesomeDaddy!Fitz (oh, and also outdoor sex...but compared to the other two, this one seems pretty minor).
> 
> I really can't thank the most amazing beta ever @blancasplayground enough. I can read through the chapter 6,000 times and she still has questions and ideas that make it so much better.

_Perthshire, 2020_

Jemma closed her eyes and tipped her face towards the sun. The day was so bright she could feel the warmth on her skin. Today was a perfect day. Fitz and Maddie were beside her on the blanket, a small picnic spread out before them. Fitz had wrapped one arm around her and was tickling Maddie with other hand. Maddie’s giggles were contagious. Jemma smiled and opened her eyes -- and found herself caught in Fitz’s very intense gaze. His eyes looked exceptionally blue in the sunlight and she felt like she was drowning in him.

Her smile froze on her face and she didn’t breathe again until he looked away, following Maddie’s tottering steps as the little girl escaped from his grasp. Jemma turned to face Maddie as well. Watching her was cathartic, and helped still Jemma’s roiling emotions. Every time Maddie’s bare feet encountered the still slightly dewy grass, she let out a squeal and plopped back down on the blanket, looking towards Fitz and Jemma to make sure they were watching before starting her explorations once again.

Jemma felt a swell of pride, amazed every day at how much Maddie changed and grew. In just a few days Maddie had gone from unsteady on her feet to being able to walk mostly unassisted. She squeezed Fitz’s hand, so glad they could spend these moments together.

Fitz.

Her heart ached a little at the thought of him...and the memory of their...date. Just sitting beside him, it took a monumental effort to keep her thoughts and emotions quiet. When she woke up this morning, and the flood of memories from the other night had crashed over her, she felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes before she squeezed them shut again. It had been beautiful and perfect. Just like him. She was being ridiculously sentimental and it was so unlike her, but she felt...different.

And she also felt guilt eating at her.

Since that first day when she woke up in this place, this future, she hadn’t made any effort to find a way back. That hadn’t been a logical decision, and she had just let it go, following her emotions rather than her brain. Which was also unlike her.

But she loved it here. She loved Maddie. She loved this life. And...she loved Fitz. Really loved him. Not as a friend, though they were certainly still best friends sharing their work and their lives, but as something more...as everything more. 

Even now, the memory of the way he had touched her and made her crave him beyond all reason brought on a blush. And Jemma Simmons did not blush over sex. She had a Ph.D. in biology after all. She understood what caused those sensations.

But this was something else entirely. A sort of intimacy she hadn’t experienced before. And the fact that it was Fitz made it so much more intense. There was no other way to explain it. Maybe this was just where she was supposed to be. It felt too right for her to do anything else, even though she still felt that longing for _her_ Fitz and for the life they could have built together...this life.

Her reverie was broken by a cry from Maddie and Jemma instinctively assessed the situation, pulse picking up as she looked for the problem. Not seeing any danger, Jemma released Fitz’s hand, now squeezed a little too tightly in hers, and held her arms out to the little girl.

“Alright Maddie?” Fitz asked, as Maddie curled her tiny body up in Jemma’s lap. Her crying had ceased as she cuddled against Jemma, and one small thumb was now pushed into her mouth.

“Someone is ready for a nap.” Jemma stared down at her daughter, whose eyes kept drifting closed before popping open again, as if she was afraid of missing out on something. Jemma certainly understood the feeling.

“I certainly am,” Fitz replied, leaning down to kiss Maddie’s chubby cheek.

“Fitz!” Jemma exclaimed, in mock outrage.

“Fine,” he pretended to pout. “I know we have that meeting later, but let’s sit out here for a bit longer, yeah?”

Jemma never wanted to leave this spot, but she just nodded in agreement, shifting Maddie so she was lying on the blanket beside them.

Once her hands were free she turned to Fitz again, and he met her with a searing kiss that sent sparks of awareness through her. When he broke the kiss and looked into her eyes, she could see that maybe his thoughts were on the other night as well.

Surveying the remaining food from their impromptu feast, Fitz reached for the bowl of strawberries, dipping one into the low-fat, organic yogurt he had teased her about earlier.

Her eyes followed the fruit to his mouth. As she stared at his lips, thinking about how they had felt on her body, heat settled low in her belly.

Noticing her gaze, and completely misinterpreting it, he said, “Here...I’ll get one for you.”

Carefully picking out another strawberry, he swiped it through the yogurt before offering it to her. Rather than reaching out her hand to take it from him, she leaned down and licked the yogurt from the strawberry, swirling her tongue around it as she did.

She glanced up at him through her lashes and was pleased to see that his mouth had dropped open in shock. She smirked, opening her mouth wider to take the berry into her mouth and licking the juice clean from his fingers.

“Jemma…” he practically growled at her, voice low. At his tone she felt a shiver, even though the day was warm, as her body reacted instinctively to him.

She looked at him contemplatively as she chewed, and saw his eyes dart down towards their sleeping child before leaning back on his elbows, deliberately increasing the distance between the two of them.

She suddenly felt the need to claim him, to share something with him that whatever version of her that he knew had never shared with him.

“What’s something you’ve always wanted to do? That we’ve never done?”

After a moment’s silence she replayed the question in her mind, wondering if she should have been more specific. If he came back with “go to Disneyland” or something similar, she’d feel a little ridiculous.

But he hadn’t misunderstood her. She saw him swallow, and when he spoke his voice was still low, tingling across her already frazzled nerve endings.

“You. Under the stars.”

She must have looked surprised by his answer, when really all she felt was poorly concealed lust, because he continued, “That’s been my fantasy since we were 16...how you’d look in the moonlight.”

His voice had gotten quiet and she turned his words over in her head. She was grateful they weren’t looking at each other because that meant he couldn’t see the emotions that must be running across her face. Even in her timeline 16 had been a long time ago. And if he had been thinking about her that way for so long, then they had really missed a lot of time together. But they could certainly make up for that now.

“16? So, since that night we stayed out all night to watch the shooting stars?”

“Yeah.”

She leaned back next to him and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. “Sometimes I feel like there are so many things I don’t know about you yet.”

Fitz looked like he wanted to respond, confusion creasing his forehead. But he was interrupted by the buzzing of an alarm.

Reaching to turn it off, he sighed. “We better get ready for our meeting. If we’re lucky Maddie will sleep through the whole thing.”

Gathering up the remains of their lunch, Jemma watched Fitz carry the still-sleeping child back into the house. Her anxiety about their upcoming conference call with the team was fading as she began preparing a surprise under the stars for Fitz.

* * *

As it turned out, she should have worried a little bit more about her meeting with the team. She had read through her notes and discussed the current project in broad terms with Fitz, but of course he didn’t really know the specifics of all of her contributions over the last several years...and unfortunately, neither did she.

So when Skye has appeared on the large monitor in the office, Maddie sleeping peacefully in her room down the hall, Jemma hadn’t really known what to expect.

“Skye! It’s so good to see you.” It was strange that Fitz had never mentioned Skye, only the agents he referred to as Daisy and Mack.

“Jemma,” Skye replied with a grimace, “you know it’s been years since you’ve called me that. Are you feeling alright?”

Oh. Skye must be the Daisy that Fitz kept mentioning. A glance towards Fitz showed that he was looking at her strangely as well, though he didn’t say anything. She smiled broadly and turned back to the monitor.

“So sorry, Daisy…I must be more tired than I thought. Maddie keeps us busy.”

“But we aren’t here to talk about that.” She turned toward Fitz and gestured for him to start, as they had planned when they talked about this the night before. But before he could say anything, the other person on the call, who must have been Mack, interrupted.

“So...it looks like there is a problem with the new I.C.E.R.s.”

“What kind of problem? Is it the delivery mechanism? Or the cartridge? Is it sticking again?”

“No, Turbo...all of that is fine.”

Jemma’s first thought was to wonder who Turbo was. But of course that must be Fitz, since he was the one Mack was addressing. Why would “Turbo” be a nickname for Fitz? He was just...Fitz.

But after a moment’s pause Jemma felt an inkling of unease. She had prepared as best she could for this meeting, but she had no idea what sort of modifications they had made to the I.C.E.R.s. And if the problem wasn’t with Fitz’s design, then that meant it was with her application of the dendrotoxin.

“It's just that when we’ve tested it out in the field, it doesn’t seem to be as effective,” Mack was saying diplomatically.

But then Skye, or Daisy rather, cut in. “It doesn’t work, Jemma. And that could get one of us killed out there.”

Jemma inhaled sharply, not used to this sort of criticism from Skye, and tried to formulate a response. But before she had the chance she heard Fitz’s voice.

“Daisy, you know the science is sound. We would _never_ put you in danger.”

Daisy rolled her eyes and Jemma could feel the tension straight through the monitor.

Even though Fitz had jumped to her defense, Jemma knew what everyone was thinking. She felt herself grow warm and knew that part of it was love for Fitz and his undying support, but the rest of it was all embarrassment. If she hadn’t ended up here, then it was likely her future self would have already found and fixed the problem.

“I’m sorry. I’ll go over everything again and figure out where the problem is. I’ll upload the new compound to the server as soon as I’ve finished.”

“Thanks, Simmons,” Mack responded with a smile.

He, at least, was outwardly calm and she appreciated the professionalism. The same could not be said for Fitz and Skye who looked like they were in the middle of a staring contest. Was that because of her? Or had something else happened in the years she had missed?

The rest of the meeting was uneventful and Jemma thought she held her own with the new technology they were developing. Of course, Fitz was the only one who really knew what she was talking about, so there was no danger of being found out.

They were just wrapping up when Jemma heard the small cries from down the hall and hurriedly said her goodbyes before going to get Maddie up from her nap. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face Fitz alone again.

But it didn’t matter what she was ready for, because while she was changing Maddie’s diaper Fitz came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

Why did he have to know her so well? It was bad enough she had made such a big mistake and now she had his sympathy as well.

She shook her head. “No...I’ll just go back through my research.” She finished with the diaper and helped guide Maddie’s wiggly legs back into her stretchy pants.

Giving Maddie a big kiss and picking the little girl up, she turned in Fitz’s arms.

“Do you mind if I do that now?”

Fitz looked surprised, but he didn’t comment, instead reaching for Maddie. “We can go for a walk, Maddie. How about that?”

Maddie jabbered excitedly and Jemma smiled at the two of them as they looked for Maddie’s socks and shoes.

Jemma spent the rest of the afternoon and evening holed up in the lab. She had given up on understanding the modifications she had made. There were compounds involved that she had never even heard of, let alone understood what they did. She’d have to start over from the beginning, from the very first I.C.E.R. design, and follow the changes one by one. And there wasn’t time for that today.

Once she had realized she’d hit a dead end, she turned her thoughts to more accessible goals and checked the weather and lunar phase. The moon wasn’t quite full, but it was close. Along with the clear night, that meant there should be plenty of moonlight for what she was planning.

* * *

Fitz gave her plenty of space, which she was grateful for, and when he finally ventured out to the lab, with a sleepy Maddie in his arms, the last rays of sunlight were just visible.

“Oh! I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“It’s alright, Jemma. Maddie was just missing you.”

The little girl reached for her and Jemma took her in her arms, peppering her face with kisses.

“She’s already eaten...and had a bath.”

Fitz didn’t sound upset but Jemma felt guilty all the same. What had she been thinking, hiding here for half the day when she had other responsibilities?

“So…I was thinking you might be ready for a break. I can get some takeout?” Fitz sounded uncertain and she realized she had been uncharacteristically quiet, hiding herself away and not really talking to him even now.

“I think that sounds lovely,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “I’m not going to make any progress tonight, anyway.”

“Do you want me to…?” he asked, gesturing to Maddie.

“I’ll get her tucked in.” Jemma smiled at him and he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, just as his stomach rumbled.

Jemma laughed, then said, “I’m so sorry, Fitz. I was out here working while you were practically starving.”

“I guess I better get that food before it’s too late.”

He waited while she shut down her computer and locked the door behind her, and together they walked back to the house, Jemma and Maddie going to read stories before bed and Fitz heading to the kitchen to find the number for takeout.

Even though this day hadn’t gone at all as expected, Jemma was still looking forward to what would come next.

* * *

It had been Fitz’s idea to eat on the patio, the night air still warm from the heat of the day. It suited Jemma’s intentions as well. While Fitz had gone to get dinner, Jemma laid out a thick blanket under the tree they had picnicked beside earlier in the day and changed into a loose cotton dress...and nothing else. There weren’t any neighbors nearby, so there was no real danger of getting caught. Still, what she was planning to do felt forbidden and she felt a secret thrill at the danger.

Dinner was spent in a companionable silence. And while Jemma hadn’t done anything more than pick at her food, Fitz dug in like a starving man.

“Alright, Jemma?”

“Yes...of course,” she answered, startled out of her own thoughts.

“You aren’t...ah, upset about earlier?”

She thought for a moment and shook her head.

“Walk with me?” she asked, changing the subject. Standing up, she picked up the baby monitor before reaching for his hand.

“Are you implying I need to exercise after that meal?” He stretched and patted his belly.

“Of course not, Fitz,” she laughed. “I just thought it would be nice. The moon is really bright tonight. It’s beautiful.”

He took her hand in his. “Beautiful,” he echoed.

But he wasn’t looking at the sky. He was looking at her instead. And by the gleam in his eye it seemed like he had read her mind. Which she had known he would.

They walked side-by-side and she guided him towards the blanket she had set out earlier. His thumb rubbed against her hand as they walked and her anticipation grew, heat starting to coil inside her.

She walked ahead purposefully, tugging him along behind her. But before she could take control of the situation and seduce him as planned, he stopped and pulled her close. Their bodies fit together like they were made for each other, and Jemma felt desire surge through her.

Pulling him down to her, she kissed him hungrily, seeking a way to ease the ache that was now thrumming through her at the promise of what was to come.

Walking backwards, she pulled him with her and found herself pushed against the large tree, trapped between the rough bark and Fitz’s warm body.

She could feel every inch of him against her and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him again, their breath hot and his lips soft and wet against hers. But it wasn’t enough. She never wanted to let him go.

He kissed her deeply, tongue pushing into her mouth, his hands gripping her tightly around the waist. She moaned as their lips parted and wriggled her hips against him as his mouth dropped to her neck. Relaxing her grip on him, she let her head fall back against the tree as he kissed his way down to the neckline of her dress.

Jemma was ready to scream in frustration. She had experienced his slow and oh-so-very thorough lovemaking the night before, and she wasn’t interested. Or, more accurately, she was interested, but that wasn’t what she had planned for tonight.

Taking matters into her own hands, she reached down to grab his ass and squeezed, rubbing against him so there was no doubt as to what she meant.

He responded to her efforts with a groan, his breath hot against her skin.

“Fitz...let me. I want to do something for you.”

Taking his hand again, she moved them from beneath the shadows of the tree and into the moonlight. Kicking off her shoes she flexed her toes against the soft fabric of the blanket.

His eyes met hers and she took a steadying breath before gripping the hem of her dress and pulling it over her head in one smooth motion.

She watched Fitz’s eyes scan her body and waited for his reaction, suddenly nervous. The evening had been warm, but the night was cooler. Her nipples tightened with the combination of the cooling air and his heated scrutiny. Her breasts felt heavy and as Fitz continued to examine her she became very aware of the blood pulsing through her and how much she wanted to feel him inside her.

When he finally did speak, it was to say, “Jemma...did you eat dinner without your knickers?”

It was so absurd that she burst out laughing, feeling positively giddy.

He looked slightly dazed as she guided him down to the ground to lie on his back. It seemed that perhaps her future self wasn’t as adventurous as she felt right now. She briefly wondered what had happened, but pushed that aside in favor of undoing the buttons on Fitz’s shirt and sliding her hands across his stomach.

He had always been slim, but now he was strong and lean and she felt the muscles rippling under her hands.

She traced her fingers downward and unzipped his trousers, not bothering to remove his clothing before freeing him from his boxers. He let out a hiss as her hands wrapped around his cock and pumped gently up and down.

As moisture gathered on the tip she felt an answering wetness between her thighs and squeezed her legs together to ease some of the tension. Even though it was not what she had planned, she really wanted to taste him. A little improvisation would be alright.

“Fuck...Jemma,” he moaned.

“Yes...I thought that was what you were going to do,” she teased.

She licked her lips and lowered her head, licking the length of him before taking his cock fully in her mouth. She bobbed up and down, swirling her tongue experimentally as she eased her way back up. She had been afraid it would be difficult to judge his reaction, but as soon as she touched him he had become vocal, moaning every time she shifted her movements to find a better angle and gasping out her name when she released him with a soft pop before beginning her explorations again. His hips started to jerk erratically, pushing his cock deeper into her mouth, even though she could feel the tension in his muscles from the strain of remaining mostly still, and she smiled. She thought she had figured out the best way to drive him crazy, using her tongue to stroke up and down while her lips created suction, when he ground out her name from between clenched teeth.

“Jemma...no more.”

“Don’t you like it?” she asked sweetly. “Well, I guess I could try something different...that you might like better?”

Not bothering to wait for him to respond as he worked his jaw mutely, she straddled him and positioned him between her folds, slowly sinking down. With their bodies joined, he reached for her, fingers skimming across her stomach before palming her breasts. He seemed determined to repay her for her earlier teasing as he ran the pads of his thumbs over her nipples, sending bolts of heat straight to the muscles tensing around his cock as she deliberately moved up and down, setting a rhythm that kept both of them right on the edge of pleasure. When she didn’t think she could take much more of the delicious torture, he moved one hand to grasp her hip tightly, encouraging her movements as the other pressed small, slow circles against her clit. At the same time, he was pushing back against her, a counter to her movements, and the sensations flooding her proved to be too much. Her clit throbbed and her inner walls pulsed around him. As she felt her orgasm crash around her, she leaned down, covering his body with hers and tucking her head against his shoulder.

“I love you, Fitz,” she whispered into his ear. The words came unexpectedly from her lips, words she had never said to him. But she meant it. Every word. She couldn't live without this feeling ever again. She wouldn’t.

“I love you too, Jemma,” Fitz answered her, his voice strong and steady.

He turned his head to kiss her, and then all she could do was cling to him as he used the leverage of their entwined bodies to drive into her with more force than she had managed from her previous position.

The slide of their bodies moving together put constant pressure on her clit and with every thrust she cried out. There was nothing except the feel of his arms wrapped around her, the sound of Fitz’s rough breathing, and the cool air on her heated skin.

She felt pressure building inside her once again, and then she was distracted by Fitz’s lips pressing against hers and an insistent beeping coming from somewhere next to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry to leave it there. But to get to the next part, we need to get back to Season 1 Fitz (and I'm afraid we'll be saying goodbye to Future!Fitz in favor of reality...but I promise Jemma's Fitz will be just as amazing).
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you are enjoying it, because I know I'm having a blast writing this. :)
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a crazy week at work, so even though I had most of this done I didn’t have time to actually do anything with it. A big thank you to everyone for being patient with me :)
> 
> This will be the last chapter from Fitz’s point of view. He is pretty frustrated in this chapter, but I promise he’ll feel better soon. 
> 
> As always a huge, huge thank you to @blancasplayground!!! Without her I’d still be trying to figure out what to do with Fitz in this chapter.

_The Bus, 2013_

Fitz was completely out of ideas, and it was moments like these when he normally relied on Jemma. It had only been two days, but in some ways it felt like an eternity. The last bit of progress he made had been yesterday. The only test results that were still pending were from a sample he had managed to get from the stone. Some sort of residue that he thought might have come from the pin, but he wasn’t sure. And beyond kissing Jemma and hoping for the best, there had been no further ideas from Skye either. 

When the rest of the team came back from their search - empty-handed - he had pleaded with Coulson to take Jemma to an actual medical facility where there might be someone who could help her. They just didn’t have any resources, and their expertise related to 084’s had clearly been expended.

He had slept fitfully last night before stealing down to the med bay to sit beside Jemma, holding her hand from a chair pulled close to her bed this time.

Coulson wanted the entire team to pitch in on the research side of things, though Fitz didn’t think there was much Ward, May, or Coulson could add that he hadn’t already considered. But May had been the one who suggested this would help them pass the time until they landed at the medical facility, still several hours out. Which was why now, mostly rested, they were all gathered around the holotable going over Fitz and Skye’s findings.

Fitz went over everything, pulling up the scanned images of the disc and the stones. He explained how the pin slid out of the stone and shared what he had learned about the construction and composition of the 084, and finally about the coded message. Coulson had asked some surprisingly insightful questions, while Ward had looked mildly annoyed throughout Fitz’s recitation, like he had somewhere better to be. 

But even after his research had been shared and all the questions had been answered, they were no closer to the solution. The missing piece of the puzzle was lying, asleep, in the med bay. After everything they’d been through together, he wasn’t sure he wanted to do this without her - wasn’t even sure if he could. His thoughts turning to her again, he snuck another look at the tablet to make sure she was still resting peacefully, only to find that she wasn’t.

Her heart was beating faster again, but she still wasn’t moving. Then there was a moment when nothing registered at all on the tablet, and Fitz held his breath until the next jagged line raced across the screen. Even though he knew he couldn’t actually help her, didn’t help her when he was by her side, he really wanted to be near her right now. More for himself than for her, obviously.

When he looked up he saw that everyone was looking at him and the conversation had petered out. Holding up the tablet, he turned it around so they could see.

“Fitz, why don’t you go check on Simmons,” Coulson said evenly, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. “Skye can tell us what she’s found while you are gone.”

Fitz pulled a face, but didn’t waste time objecting. He appreciated Coulson’s perpetual calm, but he also wanted someone else to show some of the terror he had been feeling these past two days. But for now it was far more important that he get to Jemma.

Once out of sight of the lab, he took his fast walk up to a run, needing to get to her as quickly as he could...just in case. He’d never felt so helpless. Science had failed him. Failed them. He’d thought they had so much time...and now it might be too late. As soon as he reached her side he wrapped one of her hands in both of his. The machine next to her was beeping erratically with no apparent pattern. 

He leaned closer to her face and felt her exhale a shallow breath. As long as she was breathing he’d keep fighting for her. 

Knowing there was nothing he could actually do, he pulled the chair up beside her bed again and smoothed a hand across her face, tucking her hair behind her ears the way he’d seen her do hundreds of times. 

“Jemma,” he said, voice cracking. Swallowing, he tried again, “Jemma...we’ve been together through so much. And I thought you’d always be by my side. I need you by my side.”

He paused, taking a breath and checking the readout on the machine. Her breathing had slowed and her heartbeat was slow and steady again. It wasn’t progress, but at least it wasn’t worse. 

“I love you.” He swiped at the wetness on his cheeks, frustration and anger and sadness all warring for control. 

They should have had a lifetime for him to get up his nerve to tell her how he felt. These last weeks, out in the field, had made it more and more obvious that his feelings were real...and that he couldn’t ignore them any longer. 

Taking her hand in his again, he steeled himself for what he needed to say. He had the tablet and the rest of the team was listening to Skye’s fairy tale nonsense. So he was alone with Jemma with no chance of being overheard. 

“I’m not sure I’m strong enough without you. I-I should have told you a long time ago.” He felt his lips move into a lopsided grin without really meaning to. “You would have told me I was being ridiculous.”

“But I’m not. I love you, Jemma Simmons. And I need you...even if you don’t feel the same way.”

He paused, pondering the words he had finally said to her. 

“I’m sorry I can’t wake you up...you would know what to do, but I’m not good enough...at least at this. I have tried everything I could think of. And nothing has worked. There is just one test still running. The only idea we haven’t tried yet is Skye’s theory...I’m not sure it can even be called a theory, to be honest, but her _theory_ that you need a kiss to wake up.”

Fitz stared down at her lips for a moment before continuing, “It isn’t science...but she has it in her head that I need to kiss you. And as much as I want to, I had always pictured our first real kiss with you at least being awake.”

He paused, giving her time to take that in, like she could hear him and participate in this conversation. “I know...but it seems wrong somehow to kiss you when you aren’t awake and I’m afraid I’m only considering something so completely illogical because it is what I _want_ to be true.”

This was the first time he had allowed himself to think it, let alone say it, but it was true that he wanted to kiss her and he wanted that to wake her up. That felt like something tangible...and completely mad. 

Looking back at the machine, he let the even beeps and spiking colors lull him into a calmer state before he headed back to the team. 

When he entered the lab the discussion immediately ceased and Skye shot him an apologetic look. Before he could figure out what that might be for, Coulson began to speak again. 

“Fitz, you are just in time. Skye has been filling us in on her research and I—we—feel like it is a path worth pursuing.”

Coulson was looking at him with an expectant expression, so Fitz shifted his gaze to Skye, who did her best to look innocent.

“What path is that?” Fitz asked through gritted teeth, already knowing the answer. 

The entire team was standing closer to the holotable now and even Ward seemed to be interested in the unfolding conversation. 

“It sounds like Simmons has been cursed,” Coulson answered calmly. 

Fitz rested one hand on his lower back and dropped his head into the other one, not quite able to comprehend the direction his life had taken. 

“Simmons is a scientist,” he tried to respond as calmly as Coulson had...and failed. “She wouldn’t believe in a curse. There has to be an explanation. One based on facts...not children’s stories!” 

“Fitz...I know the two of you are close, but you heard everything Skye found. There are images of the stones from throughout history.” Fitz started to interrupt, but Coulson continued talking over him. “And stories of young women falling into comas or a deep sleep that correspond to the presence of the stone...and to be honest Fitz, we don’t have any other ideas.”

Fitz looked around the room and didn’t see any allies. 

“It’s Simmons...shouldn’t we try anything, no matter how unlikely?” Skye asked him. 

“Well...we still have a test running” he said, trying to find an anchor in the uncertainty surrounding him. 

Skye pulled up the decoded message again and he stared at the words, trying to make sense of them as his head was swimming. 

“Fine!” Fitz raked his hands through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles. “But even if we accept that there is a curse...it’s true love’s kiss, and we don’t know who her true love is.”

They all looked at him wordlessly, and then said with varying levels of disbelief, “It’s you, Fitz.”

His mouth hung open and he moved his jaw wordlessly. “Well...that is. I mean. Clearly not true.”

“Fitz, that girl is crazy about you. You are just too busy trying to hide your own feelings that you don’t notice she’s doing the same thing,” Skye teased him, punching him gently on the arm. Fitz tried not to flinch, but pulled back from her anyway. 

Coulson and Ward just nodded sagely. He appreciated Coulson’s support, but didn’t know what to make of Ward’s agreement. He wasn’t really that obvious, was he?

But it was May who convinced him. She put her hand on his shoulder and turned him slightly away from the group.

“Life is too short not to take a chance when it's right in front of you.”

“What if Jemma wakes up and hates that I kissed her when she was unconscious?”

“Then she’s awake...and the rest doesn’t matter.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Ok, I—I’ll think about it.”

May gave him a single nod and he wandered back into the hallway without a clear destination, except his feet were pulling him to the only place he could possibly go. He knew no one followed him, but he slid the door shut behind him anyway and stood at the end of the bed staring down at her. 

May’s words replayed in his head. There wasn’t really any reason not to kiss her at this point. As illogical as it might sound, they didn’t have any other options. And there was a good chance Jemma wouldn’t actually mind if he kissed her. After all, they had done it before. She had kissed _him_ before.

The thing that was really holding him back now was the idea that it wouldn’t work. He would let her down...and the team. And himself. And he wasn’t sure he could take that sort of cosmic rejection today. At least now he still had the idea that there might be a simple solution, one that meant she loved him too, to cling to. 

He paced back and forth in the short space by the side of her bed and reviewed his options. Which didn’t take long...since there weren’t any. He could wait for that last test result to come back. Or he could kiss her now. 

He rubbed one hand on the back on his neck and huffed out a breath. “What am I doing here?”

As had been usual for the past two days, Jemma didn’t say anything and he pointed his feet towards the door. 

He couldn’t do it.

The machines started beeping faster again. Too fast. And a glance at Jemma showed she looked flushed, her breathing labored and uneven.

Fitz shifted direction and sat down on the bed beside her, putting a hand to her forehead. Her skin was on fire. His decision of a moment ago forgotten, he leaned down so their lips were almost touching and said a quick apology to Jemma before closing the remaining distance between them. 

Her lips felt dry, but cool and soft. She didn’t respond, so he brushed his tongue across her lips in an entreaty for her to wake up. Pressing his lips firmly against hers once again, he brought his hands up to her cheeks. 

And then she sucked in a breath, startling him into opening his eyes and pulling back slightly. He gazed into her eyes for a moment, not quite believing it was real. But then her fingers wrapped around his wrists and she lifted her head so their lips met again. 

This time it felt different, with her lips moving beneath his and her arms starting to move around his body before coming to a sudden halt. It wasn’t until she let out a cry of pain that he realized it was the IV that was restricting her movements. 

Wanting nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and never let go, but also feeling guilty for letting the kiss continue after she woke up, he moved away to let her get more comfortable. 

“Fitz! It’s you!” she said excitedly, pulling off the sensors and the tape holding the IV in place. 

“Of course it’s me.” He felt embarrassed, not sure if she recognized the significance of that statement. 

“What happened?” She was now struggling to sit up and get out of the bed, and he returned to her side when it seemed like she was a little unsteady. 

“Slow down, Jemma...you’ve been asleep for two days.” 

She stopped trying to get out of the bed now that Fitz was beside her again and looked at him thoughtfully.

“Only two days? I thought…” 

He couldn’t read her expression but she seemed to want him near her, if the way she was now gripping his arm to pull him beside her on the bed was any indication. 

“I’m sorry...I kissed you. It was Skye’s idea.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Fitz.”

“I know, I know.” He pushed one hand through his hair again while she pulled his other arm around her so she was tucked in beside him. “But she was going on about a curse and how I needed to wake you up...and I know it wasn’t logical, but…”

Fitz forgot the rest of what he was about to say when he saw the way Jemma was looking at him. 

“It felt the same,” she said quietly, touching her lips with the fingers on her free hand. 

“What felt the same?” He was fairly certain she hadn’t hit her head when she fell, but her words weren’t making any sense. It was a good thing they should be getting close to that medical facility. She needed a doctor. 

“Will you kiss me again?”

Fitz wasn’t sure what the proper protocol for telling your best friend, who you very much wanted to kiss, that you shouldn’t kiss. But he was spared from answering by the sight of Skye sliding the door open, with the rest of the team close behind.

“You’re awake!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She’s finally awake! I guess Fitz is her true love. :)
> 
> I was going to wrap it up here, but I decided to add one last chapter from Jemma’s point of view so we can see how she reconciles the two versions of Fitz. There is a lot Bus Fitz needs to know and Jemma has to sort out her feelings (and experiences!)
> 
> I’d love to hear your comments! You can also find me on tumblr @libbyweasley


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter, and I am happy and sad as I post this. This one is from Jemma's POV so you can see how she feels about all of this.
> 
> A huge thank you to @blancasplayground...my words wouldn't fix themselves but she always helps me out :)

_The Bus, 2013_

It was nearly a week later that Jemma was finally released from the SHIELD medical facility with a clean bill of health. The doctors had never been able to pinpoint a reason for her two-day nap, but Skye had been more than happy to fill her in on the research they had done and how Fitz had finally woken her up. 

“He loves you. You know that right?” Skye was every bit as excited by that thought as Jemma. But for Skye it didn’t come with any of the big questions that Jemma had been turning over in her mind since she had first found herself in his arms in their picture-perfect future. In some ways the realization wasn’t a surprise at all, more like a scientific fact that had just taken them some time to prove. 

When she thought back to their kiss in the med bay, it was with a little bit of embarrassment and a lot of curiosity. She had seen him in a different light these past few days and she needed to talk to him - _her_ Fitz. But he was nowhere to be found. He had come to visit her, of course. But only in the company of others and there hadn’t been any time to bring up all the things she wanted to say to him. 

“Of course we love each other Skye. We’re best friends,” Jemma replied primly, trying to stop the thoughts running through her mind. 

“That isn’t it,” Skye said, rolling her eyes. 

“I know,” Jemma said with a sigh. “I just don’t know what to do about it. And I don’t want to scare him. He doesn’t handle change well.”

“Don’t leave it too long. I saw that kiss, you know. You two belong together.”

Skye gave her a hug. “I’m glad you’re back. Fitz was driving me crazy. Get some rest.”

“Good night Skye,” Jemma said, laughter bubbling up inside her. 

With the rest of the plane’s occupants seemingly settled in for the night, Jemma went in search of Fitz, finally finding him hunched over his tablet in the lab mumbling to himself. 

“Hello, Fitz,” she called from across the room, trying not to startle him. 

“Jemma...shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I wanted to talk to you...about what happened.” Now that she was here she wasn’t sure how to tell him about everything. To buy some time she walked up behind him and looked at the test results he was examining. There was a chemical compound rotating in 3D on his tablet. 

“That looks like a tetrodotoxin...except for right here,” she said, pointing at the screen. “What are you looking at?”

He turned to look at her, his eyes big and full of something she didn’t understand. 

“That...that is the residue from the stone. It was the one test still running after you woke up. But if it is a tetrodotoxin, then it should have killed you.”

Oh, that’s what that look was. It was fear. She had hoped it was something else. 

“But it didn’t, Fitz. I’m right here.” She pulled up a chair next to him and rested her hand on his leg in a gesture of comfort. But as he stared down at where her hand was touching his thigh she felt her face heat up. 

He took her hand in his and they sat in silence for a minute. Jemma searched for the words she needed to tell him. 

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you properly. Thank you for waking me up.”

Fitz had been staring at their joined hands, but at her words his eyes snapped up to meet hers. 

“You don’t need to thank me,” he said quietly. “I should be apologizing to you.”

“Whatever for?” she asked, laughing. “As you just said, that should have killed me, but here I am. Perfectly fine, thanks to you.”

“Did you hit your head after all?” Fitz asked, running hands fingers through her hair as if checking for a bump. 

This was very un-Fitz-like behavior, but if Skye was to be believed then Fitz had done more than this when she was asleep to make sure she was okay. Plus, she wasn’t about to stop him when his touch was sending little tingles through her. She closed her eyes, letting the sensation wash over her. 

“Jemma.” Fitz’s hands had stilled and he was cradling her cheeks in his palms. “If it really is some sort of modified tetrodotoxin, then there was never any curse...and I didn’t do anything to save you.”

Jemma reached up to cover his hands with hers, binding him to her as best she could. “Of course you did, Fitz. You didn’t give up. Skye told me about everything you did for me.”

Jemma swallowed and steeled herself to continue. This was it. The point of no return. “Fitz,” she said quietly, waiting for him to meet her eye again, “when I was asleep I saw the future, _our_ future.”

His hands were fidgety against her skin, so she released him and he wiped his palms across his trousers. It was hard to judge his reaction, but she continued anyway, telling him about everything that had happened while she had been asleep.

When she finished he was silent, apparently deep in thought. His expression, usually so open for her to read, was guarded.

“Please say something, Fitz,” she practically begged. “Anything...I need to know what you are thinking.” 

She didn’t realize she had been crying until Fitz wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Jemma, I’m not him.”

“Yes, you are,” she insisted. “It took me a while to see, but the things that I loved about him are the things I already love about you.” 

He still looked skeptical, and Jemma knew she couldn’t let this moment slip away, couldn’t lose the chance to have that life because he felt safer staying friends.

“I’m not her either, Fitz. I don’t have a husband and a daughter. I haven’t lived through that life.” 

Fitz was nodding, but she knew he still didn’t understand.

“But I want to. With you.” 

“None of that was real, Jemma.” He got up and started pacing the room, and she followed him with her eyes. “You never left the Bus. And now that we know that you were suffering from the effects of a toxin, it could have been some sort of hallucination...or a, ah, coma-induced fantasy!”

Fitz was obviously getting agitated and she was getting frustrated by his refusal to see what was right in front of him. Unless he didn’t actually want to be with her. But then why did he kiss her?

“Okay, Fitz, let’s look at all of the evidence.”

“Right...science will give us the solution.”

“So,” Jemma began, pulling color coded notecards out of the drawer, “here are the facts.”

Writing one fact on each card she included everything they knew about her dreams, the stones, fairy tales, the toxin, and the kiss. While she was writing, Fitz reached for one of the cards.

“Wait...Maddie?”

“Yes, I assume it was short for Madeline, but I didn’t actually see a birth certificate.”

Fitz was turning the card over in his hands. “That was my grandmother’s name.”

“Well, that makes sense, then.” Jemma smiled at him and then went back to writing. “I didn’t know where that name came from, but I’m sure we named her after your grandmother. It’s a beautiful name.”

“I must have told you that at some point...and your subconscious came up with the name.”

“You never told me your grandmother’s name, Fitz.”

He went back to sorting the cards until she handed him the last one, watching his face as he read it.

“M-making love under the stars? Jemma!” She smiled as his face flushed and he dropped the card like it was on fire.

“How would I know that, Fitz?”

“What do you mean? You were there that night.” He rubbed one hand across the back of his neck. “You must have noticed that I was looking at you instead of the stars.”

“I didn’t notice...if I had…” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Alright, what patterns do you see in the data?” she asked him, turning the conversation back to something more comfortable for him.

He squinted at the cards, moving them around the table, before finally giving up.

“Nothing, none of this makes any sense.”

“I think it does.” Jemma scooped all of the cards together and dumped them into the bin, ignoring Fitz’s protests.

Turning to him, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked up at him through her lashes, not quite ready to face his intense blue gaze.

“What I feel isn’t magic, it’s you…” He started to interrupt, but she stopped him. “Hear me out. I thought I was in our future and I wanted to live that life with you...and you, well, you were willing to give me true love’s kiss me to save me from a curse. Maybe it’s crazy, but I think we should give us a chance.”

He used a finger to tilt her face up to his and when their eyes met she felt the electricity between them. 

“Maybe we’re both crazy, then,” he said, leaning closer to her. “I want to kiss you again.”

She fisted her hands in his shirt and let her eyes fall closed as their lips met, not for the first time, but for the first time that they both acknowledged there was something more than friendship between them.

With Fitz’s arms wrapped around her, she leaned into the kiss. Everything about him was familiar - his scent, the way it felt to be close to him, even his kiss. But it was also all new. This really was their first kiss and she wanted to memorize how it felt. Pressing her tongue against his lips, she let out a sigh as his mouth opened and he tentatively explored her. They still had so much to learn about each other and she didn’t want to miss a moment of it.

_Seven Years Later, Perthshire_

Jemma snuggled closer to the warm body next to her, and let out a moan his hands roamed her body.

“Fitz! You know Maddie is about to wake up.”

The low chuckle he let out at her words rumbled through her body.

“Happy second anniversary, wife. Saying that really doesn’t ever get old.”

“Happy anniversary, Fitz. But you know we’re going to get called in today and end up celebrating our anniversary in a few weeks.”

Fitz gave her a squeeze and rested his chin on the top of her head. “You’ve been right about everything else, so I’m guessing you’re right about this too. I guess I’ll just have to wait to see you in that dress.”

“I guess you will,” she replied sweetly.

“So...this is where the 084 sent you?” he asked.

“I was actually here a few weeks after this when we will actually celebrate our anniversary. But I was here with you, and that was enough for me.”

She turned in his arms so she was facing him, and smiled when he kissed her nose.

“Is it all the same as you remember?”

“No,” she said with a frown. “But all the important things are the same. You. Maddie. And no matter what the universe threw at us, I knew we could make it here...but honestly, I have no idea what comes next.”

“I do,” Fitz said, giving her a kiss as a wail sounded from the baby monitor. “Next we live happily ever after.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for taking this journey with me! This is officially the most words I've written on any one topic. 
> 
> I love to hear your thoughts and comments :)
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr @LibbyWeasley


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